3 comments

Teens & Young Adult Coming of Age Romance

When did it get so exhausting? Is this a question I should be asking myself, probably not. Every day, I wake up, put on my face, walk out the door, smile, come home, fall apart. I am 17 years old and I feel lost. The world spins around me as it swallows me whole and I can't get out. It has become so hard to live everyday fearing my next move will be another fuck up. My mind races through every thought, outcome and possibility before my body can react. I do everything for everyone before I consider myself yet everyday it feels like I can’t be good enough. Until you. I think you fixed me, in a twisted fucked up way I still find my person inside of you and honestly it’s terrifying. I found my biggest heartbreak and my biggest love over and over again in every part of you. This world is a terribly lonely place to search for love from others when you lack it for yourself. I sit in my bed and watch the tears slip off my face onto your shirt I stole so long ago as I try to heal myself from your heartbreak, while loving you for who you have become for me. I read of codependency and unhealthy attachment to see if this is who I’ve become. I don’t resent you. I wish you saw me like I saw you. Together we breathe as one, we laugh as one, we are one. When we are apart and my empty house reminds me of how you are all I have, everything begins to shake and the world goes black. Trust, apologize, love, repeat. Trust, apologize, love, repeat. I have become who you need me to be as you have for me. When will you realize I see that but everytime it feels like it might slip, I end up alone. Now the biggest life lesson I have learned thus far is that waiting for somebody to love the way I so unrelentlessly have is a wait longer than one can survive. I became a shell of myself a long time ago, until you. Until I burst out laughing and you hold me like it is the happiest sound you have ever heard. Until you are licking the side of my face and blowing raspberries on my stomach. Until you scratch the top of my head and solve every feeling my father never could. Until your head slips between my legs and I let out a sigh that makes you smile with pride. Can I learn to love myself like you say you always have? It could be a hoax but honestly right now it doesn’t matter because my legs are on your shoulders and you kiss the top of my head and tell me you love me. I spend the nights you are with your friends waiting for you in case you need me. You never do. It’s a wait I keep having for my love because friends don’t exist for me in this burning whole of a town I ended up in. Until you. Nobody will ever love like me. Until you, you come close until you don’t understand and I am screaming at the top of my lungs and shoving you away with all the ache you have caused until you force me into your arms and it breaks. The love I have for you will not die, it will not burn out. All I can do is hope that yours is lit next to mine. I give you the night to be you. I wait. I check your location every 3 minutes. You haven’t texted back. I still love you. I try everyday to control myself for you because you ask all these things of me and somehow even after you left me time and time again, cheating on me, leaving me out to wither away in a world that seemed to try to break me with every shot it could. Somehow this is all my fault. We began to crack as we have every single time we tried to be us and I was convinced that everytime I pushed too hard or I gave up too easily. I miss being able to breathe with you because I risked it all for you to walk away. You became a blur of a memory I was terrified to forget yet here I sit begging my brain to let you go. Remembering you became a curse and forgetting you was empty. You have always been my person, my best friend, my biggest pain and my loudest supporter. How can one hold so many ties to the person I am today? How did I let you anchor yourself to me? I now walk the halls of this small town school and tears fill my eyes when you pass by me. A classic love story, lovers turned strangers. This has to be all my fault, you walked away again, just like everyone else before you did. I lived for you and now I have lost purpose to be who you created. A girl without worries, someone who didn’t care what others thought, I became myself. I now consume myself in fear and the confidence you spent years creating slipped through my fingers and fell into a puddle of memories and laughs I once spent everyday consumed in. I miss the way your hands feel against my back, the way you hugged me like it was always our last, the way you cherished me like I was the one thing you couldn’t live without. I forget the way your body felt against mine and the way mine relaxed against yours. My walls have begun to close in on me. I’m sorry for giving up on the person you created. She was a wonderful soul to get to know. Everything you brought with you is now clouded by doubt and failure, one of these days someone will keep trying. Someone will feel as though I am worth every battle and aching day. Till that day comes I will continue to read the letters you once wrote me and crave your heart the way it once was. This is all my fault. 

September 26, 2022 04:42

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3 comments

Barb Taub
23:40 Oct 05, 2022

As a grammar-nerd, this story was torture. But I found myself admiring the way the words poured out like the author turned on a fire hose to max and spewed out everything together. It was painful and went on too long, but anyone who has gone through the pain of a failed relationship in which they have over-invested will be familiar with the toxic mix of bittersweet memories, anger, and pain— the ever painful question of what to do with love when the lover is gone. So yes, an edit would have helped, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to r...

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Jennifer Cameron
14:23 Oct 04, 2022

This is a really lovely idea and you can feel the emotions your character is feeling as you read it and that is a great skill to be able to do that. I have a few points to make your writing even better, it's not a criticism at all! It would be great if you broke this up into smaller paragraphs as a large section of writing like this can be quite daunting to look at before you begin reading and it seemed like you had lots of great ideas in your head that you wanted to get out quickly before you forgot them. Maybe once you've written it all, r...

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Isabella Medrano
01:42 Oct 09, 2022

This is super helpful I’m just getting into writing and will definitely start breaking it up and reading out loud! Thank you so much!

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