oh dear.

I think I’m getting lazier and lazier. Textured backgrounds and super fine lines? This is the second night in a row! Gray and red and black? Yes!

What can I say about the theme? How can I say it WELL, is the question. I suppose there’s no way to say it well, so I’ll just say it poorly. Before there were any reservations, before adultlike cynicism and doubt set in, before I analyzed what every word meant from a text message or a phone call, there was a time when I was fifteen that I let all of it go, unabashedly. I didn’t even know it existed. All I knew were the talks that lasted for hours, colored by moonlight and crickets. All I knew was the unexpected laughter at discovering that you were so so similar on one tiny, infinitesimally small microscopic level that you never realized. I knew bagels eaten eagerly so that fingers burned in the process, ramen made at three in the morning, endless cups of bubble tea devoured while meandering around hidden stone fountains.

Phone calls. Angry phone calls that ended in laughter, then a three hour storm of tears. Loneliness loneliness loneliness. Staring out windows, slogging through class. An unexpected smile, steaming cups of coffee, friendships deepened, mentors found, angry poems written, more angry poems written, twenty minute tirades by a good friend’s locker. Laughing, fighting, laughing. Driver’s license acquired, midnight snack runs enabled, invisible cat seen, college applied for, accepted. Home left, city found, new glasses, new clothes, new writing, more unexpected encounters.

girl-self found, pops of color, cherry red, hot pink, cerulean (not all at once!). Job acquired, language learned. Pens and watercolors. Same smile.