Well shit, darling… we’re all bad at SOMETHING.

I don’t know why people customize their Tumblrs. Everyone’s “Friends” page looks the same. I assume.

You just kind of sit there in your chair, staring at the computer with a half-asleep sheen over your eyes - the kind you get when you forget what you were looking for and get caught up in just staring. People pass by to the left and right of you, trying to make eye contact with you. Trying to fish some acceptance out of your glossed-over, thousand-yard stare. Trying to get your attention so maybe they can use that knockout ice-breaker they’ve been turning over in their head all day and start what would surely be a dry, empty effort at smalltalk from which both of you would come away having learned exactly zero about one another. So yeah, you take your gaze off the game of solitaire that’s gone stale several minutes ago, and you move just your eyes to let them know that yes, you do indeed see them standing there like a giant elephant in the room.
“Is something wrong?” they ask, their concern surprisingly convincing.
“No.”
“You look like something’s wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong.”
“Mkay! Well if you wanna talk, ya know, I’m here to listen!”
“Okay.”
You won’t talk to them. You’ll just sit there all lethargic like you do, passively checking the time, waiting for five o’clock and trying to pinpoint exactly when in your life you saw this pathetic existence coming around the corner and still decided to stick around. That was a bad move.
So you go home and you shuffle through some gifts you bought for people you haven’t seen in years. A t-shirt, a Pez Dispenser in the shape of a Batman character, a few notebooks and Polaroids, a Beatles lunchbox and a monogrammed flask are all bunched together in the inappropriately-named junk drawer of your desk. Then you wonder why it is you haven’t seen these people in so long. Was it something you said, or that they said? Was it something really bad and grudge-inducing?
It’s pretty tough to remember how you lost some stuff, ya know? Your keys this morning, the remote control under the love seat cushion, your virginity, your limited edition copy of Chrono-Trigger now valued at some ridiculous price, and most importantly the friends you said you’d never leave. But it’s not hard to remember why. You just didn’t care enough to keep any of them around. Oh well.
Point is, there used to be a fire inside you. There was writing that could ignite the very paper it was written on. There were scratches on your back and bite marks on your lip that took weeks to heal. There was a girl who thought about you when she went to sleep. There were friends who would’ve killed for you. The insanity and drive, even in the worst of times, kept you feeling colorful and alive.
Now you go to work, sit at a desk for 9 hours, stare listlessly, eat whatever the special is at the sandwich shop down the street, drive home, do laundry, then suddenly realize your life isn’t even worth talking about, much less living. Then you hang on til the weekend so you can get recklessly drunk with impunity. You can alienate the people you’ve used to replace your friends, smoke a pack of cigarettes and then make out with that cute girl that’s always had a crush on you. After that, you can belittle her in front of her friends just so you don’t get attached. You finish the last of the vodka and stumble out into the driveway. You start swaying, and if you were sober you would’ve realized you’d lost your balance. Halfway through the air, while you can still see the ground coming at you way too fast, for a split second, you realize there’s nothing left that you care about. Your face cracks into the gritty cement with that dull thud and you can already feel the warmth of blood running downhill and staining your favorite jeans.
They all come running over. They “heard you fall from inside the kitchen.” Then one of them turns you over so you’re sitting up. The cute girl you just made fun of is crying over in the corner cause she’s wondering why she ever had a crush on you to begin with. Her friend (the one who told her not to bother) is comforting her. She’ll be fine. Meanwhile, the blood is still running down your face, into the cracks in your lips. Your mouth is filling up with it. Suddenly it comes lunging out of your mouth in stringy clumps that stick to your teeth because you’re laughing so hysterically at, well, just everything.
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“You look like something’s wrong.”

Your quirks you’re not faking are charming.

Your insecurities are not.

The way you lie about the world makes me want to lie with you.

The way you lie about where you’ve been makes me want to leave you.

Your mother’s smile makes me believe you’ll grow up happy.

Your father’s scowl tells me you’ve grown up strong.

Your scarf in the winter tells me you have a darling style.

Your scarf in the summer tells me you’re trying too hard.

Your dress on our date tells me you want this to work.

Your sweatpants in the kitchen tell me you’re comfortable with me.

Your Elvis Costello on your iPod tells me you appreciate good music.

Your hundreds of vinyls with no player tell me you care too much.

Your jokes about yourself tell me you’re secure.

Your jokes about your friends tell me you’re not.

The way you cry tells me you care.

The way you don’t stop tells me you want to seem that way.

I’m glad that you want me.

I hate that you need me.

And no, I don’t want you to stay.