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Description
I won't ever be the girl.

No matter how many times I wake up on the faded old couch in your second floor apartment, I won't be the kind of girl you actually want to take home. No matter how much you think you do as you migrate across the room to get closer to me—as if we're magnetic. As if there is some invisible force pulling you to me like gravity.

Except I swear to God, there's none of that and I'm less inclined to believe that love works like this. Like it's some tangible thing that we can prove, define or rationalize. Like there really are some invisible strings holding us together. Like people can actually feel something forever. I still don't see it since I don't ever feel anything that lasts—besides emptiness. I can't imagine how anyone can.

Still I stay here, until I find myself tossing and turning at four am with your breath hot against my shoulder blades, and I'm finally figuring out that I have no idea what I'm doing anymore, because I think I might be doing something awful here.

But I tell myself that you know what this is. What I am. What we are. That you know that I'm just waiting for the moment when the whole world feels like enough again, because I wake up everyday, and nothing is what it used to be. No matter if I wake up curled beneath your threadbare sheets or tangled up in mine or on the hardwood floor of my ex-best-friend's kitchen, I am undeniably alone. Even when I feel your skin pressing against mine, I can't erase all the memories of the things I used to think I'd have forever that are gone now. I know I'll never be the same. That's why when you whisper "I love you" I close my eyes so that I can't see you. This way it's already less real. You're already gone. It already hurts less.

---

It was warm last night, and I could feel the alcohol coursing through my veins--heavy and hot, dulling the sensation of the rocks and blades of grass digging into my skin as I laid across the front lawn of your building, explaining to you how I used to wish on stars until they stopped seeming real to me anymore. I tell you that at some point I realized that they were nothing more than dying flickers of light, and if they're not really there to begin with, I'm clearly wasting my time. Besides my wishes never did come true. You listened with a half grin stuck on your face like I was something special. Something interesting or endearing. I promise I never will be.

But for a split second, as my eyes met yours, I wondered if I was wrong about my wishes not coming true, because you were looking at me like you could love me. That single moment was enough to break me. Enough to make me want to wreck something beautiful. Something like you. So all I wanted to tell you was that you really only think that you love me, because you are convinced that since I've stuck in your life since we were seven years old that all of this—all that we are—is enough, but it's not. Except this sounded cruel even to me and the glow in your eyes made me feel guilty. It made me feel like all of this could be different or better for us both if I wasn't me.

So I rolled over in the grass and closed my eyes, waiting for everything to just stop--waiting for the whole world to stop. Instead I heard my voice coming out in half slurred whispers and stutters, unfamiliar like a stranger, saying all the things I should always keep to myself. I wanted to grab the words out of the air and swallow them back down again, but my inhibitions were low, and I just kept going like letting go of these words was going to save me. Because everyone has that secret that could break your heart if you ever get the chance to hear it, and mine was tumbling out between my lips. But I wasn't ready for you to know, since I'm not ready to lose you yet. The only way to make anyone stay in my life is to keep a carefully controlled distance, because when people get too close nothing looks perfect anymore.

Especially not a broken down girl like me.

---

Last night, we were lying with too little space between us in the front lawn of your apartment, and you were looking at me like you could fix this, but all I could think about was how even the stars let me down. You were looking at me like you loved me and all I could think was how you were already too close. How you were already gone.

How I'm not the girl for you.

Description
I won't ever be the girl.

No matter how many times I wake up on the faded old couch in your second floor apartment, I won't be the kind of girl you actually want to take home. No matter how much you think you do as you migrate across the room to get closer to me—as if we're magnetic. As if there is some invisible force pulling you to me like gravity.

Except I swear to God, there's none of that and I'm less inclined to believe that love works like this. Like it's some tangible thing that we can prove, define or rationalize. Like there really are some invisible strings holding us together. Like people can actually feel something forever. I still don't see it since I don't ever feel anything that lasts—besides emptiness. I can't imagine how anyone can.

Still I stay here, until I find myself tossing and turning at four am with your breath hot against my shoulder blades, and I'm finally figuring out that I have no idea what I'm doing anymore, because I think I might be doing something awful here.

But I tell myself that you know what this is. What I am. What we are. That you know that I'm just waiting for the moment when the whole world feels like enough again, because I wake up everyday, and nothing is what it used to be. No matter if I wake up curled beneath your threadbare sheets or tangled up in mine or on the hardwood floor of my ex-best-friend's kitchen, I am undeniably alone. Even when I feel your skin pressing against mine, I can't erase all the memories of the things I used to think I'd have forever that are gone now. I know I'll never be the same. That's why when you whisper "I love you" I close my eyes so that I can't see you. This way it's already less real. You're already gone. It already hurts less.

---

It was warm last night, and I could feel the alcohol coursing through my veins--heavy and hot, dulling the sensation of the rocks and blades of grass digging into my skin as I laid across the front lawn of your building, explaining to you how I used to wish on stars until they stopped seeming real to me anymore. I tell you that at some point I realized that they were nothing more than dying flickers of light, and if they're not really there to begin with, I'm clearly wasting my time. Besides my wishes never did come true. You listened with a half grin stuck on your face like I was something special. Something interesting or endearing. I promise I never will be.

But for a split second, as my eyes met yours, I wondered if I was wrong about my wishes not coming true, because you were looking at me like you could love me. That single moment was enough to break me. Enough to make me want to wreck something beautiful. Something like you. So all I wanted to tell you was that you really only think that you love me, because you are convinced that since I've stuck in your life since we were seven years old that all of this—all that we are—is enough, but it's not. Except this sounded cruel even to me and the glow in your eyes made me feel guilty. It made me feel like all of this could be different or better for us both if I wasn't me.

So I rolled over in the grass and closed my eyes, waiting for everything to just stop--waiting for the whole world to stop. Instead I heard my voice coming out in half slurred whispers and stutters, unfamiliar like a stranger, saying all the things I should always keep to myself. I wanted to grab the words out of the air and swallow them back down again, but my inhibitions were low, and I just kept going like letting go of these words was going to save me. Because everyone has that secret that could break your heart if you ever get the chance to hear it, and mine was tumbling out between my lips. But I wasn't ready for you to know, since I'm not ready to lose you yet. The only way to make anyone stay in my life is to keep a carefully controlled distance, because when people get too close nothing looks perfect anymore.

Especially not a broken down girl like me.

---

Last night, we were lying with too little space between us in the front lawn of your apartment, and you were looking at me like you could fix this, but all I could think about was how even the stars let me down. You were looking at me like you loved me and all I could think was how you were already too close. How you were already gone.

How I'm not the girl for you.