a mess of unfinished thoughts.

It's Called a Crush Because It Crushes You

Dear JRW Jr.,

The sky is blue. The sky is blue and the grass is green and you could ask the smartest of scientists in the world why that is and I'm sure you would probably get some really complex answer that would make no sense to me and at the end of the day I'd still be wondering why the hell the sky is blue. Just like I'm still wondering why the hell I love you. I barely even know you but it's weird because I think I do. I think your favorite color is purple and I think the name of your favorite car starts with a 'P' and goes really fast and I think you can't go through one day at school without plugging in your headphones and banging out to music and not caring who sees you and I think you smoke a lot of weed and I think you'll probably get a tattoo one day. I think you love concerts and you love people who can match your energy and understand your humor and I also think I'm in love with you. I don't remember how it happened but I sure as hell remember when. We were in 6th grade and we were all out at recess and I was swinging by myself and I looked up from my hands in my lap and I saw you laughing at some joke with Zion and all I can remember thinking is how much I wanted you to keep laughing. I watched you for the rest of recess that day and anytime you laughed I smiled and hoped it would happen again. That was it for me and that night when I went home I told myself that we were going to be married one day but that was in 6th grade and sadly, reality set in and stole my fantasies. Up until now, you were perfect to me, not a dark hair on your head was flawed but things have changed. Now I hear you do acid and drop five tabs every day before school and when I see you in the halls your eyes are missing that sparkle they used to have and you look thin and fragile. Now my eyes are open and I see every flaw you have and I see that you blow your worries away in thick clouds of Mary Jane and I see that you don't talk too your friends anymore and hang around the kid who got expelled and carries a gun and I see that you are missing something and I see that life took it from you. I see the bags under your eyes and the deep lines in your face and the hurt in your smile and it is so selfish of me but I like to make myself believe that I could have saved you. We could have saved each other. You could have held me when I cried and told me I was beautiful when I thought I was ugly and I could have told you to spend less time with the bad kid and more time with me and I could have helped you get your grades up and smoke less weed and damn it we could have been something. You could have succeeded. We could have succeeded. Now I'm applying for colleges and you are still blowing away your future and hot boxing your dreams and I wonder if maybe I'll have enough courage to send you this one day. I've told myself I was gonna confess to you for so long and I just never could and now I realize why. Destiny, fate, God, whatever you want to call it, something made me wait and because I did I'm now really in love and I know what real love is and I know I never had it with you or for you. I was in love with the idea of you. I was in love with the idea of you being mine and me being yours and us loving each other but I barely knew you to love you. Thank you, for giving me something or someone to look forward to every day at school for all those years and thank you, really,  for being my first heartbreak.

~t.w.r