Complementary

You can call me pretty all you want, but that doesn't mean a thing. 

I know I am pretty. 

That may sound conceded or slightly pretentious but I have heard the same phrase my entire life. 

People comment on my photos, they tell my mom and grandparents, boys send me texts.

I have been called pretty over a hundred times iand at this point I don't want to hear it anymore. 

"Thank you" I reply. "You're pretty attractive yourself" 

The words have no weight because they carry no meaning.

The knowledge that someone is physically attracted to me is about as important as the ant that was just squished by a hello kitty shoe on an elementary school playground somewhere in Northern Nebraska. 

The other day a boy told me that I knew how to think. 

A few weeks ago a boy told me that I am going to have a great marriage once I find the right guy. 

Last year a boy told me that I am going to be an amazing mother and wife. 

I couldn't tell you the name of the last person that commented in my appearance, but I can tell you the name and birthdate of each boy that gave me those compliments. I can tell you what the sky looked like and what position I was sitting in. I can describe the feeling I got deep in my chest when I heard the words and I can tell you the color of each boys socks. 

Those words left imprints on my soul. 

I don't know if I have an extraordinary mind. 

I don't know if I will have a good marriage. 

I don't know if I will make a great mother or be an adequate wife.  

But somebody else does know that, and they felt that it was important enough to tell me.

That is affection and those are words I yearn to hear. 

Factual

I Don't Know How To Let People In

I Have Fat Around My Hips

My Skin Is Paper White

I've Never Had A Real Boyfriend

I Don't Think I Have Feelings 

 

By The Way

The late nights and the early mornings
The sunburns and the bug bites
The late night phone calls and long shifts at work
The best friends that practically live at your house
The sweatshirt that still smells like your last boyfriend
The pain in your stomach when you think about long lost friends
The way your dog sticks her tongue out while shes sleeping
The long showers that never get cold because your parents finally bought a tank-less water heater
The new shoes that kind of hurt your feet but you don't want to admit that they aren't perfect
The shattered iphone screens
The 9 comforters and 7 pillows that you can't sleep without
The way your heart drops every time his new girlfriends posts pictures of them on cute dates
The sorrow that you feel for her when he is taking her to all of the places you used to go
The way your mom asks what time you will be home that night
The taste of captain crunch and two percent milk at 3am after fighting with your best friend
The snagged string of your favorite sweater
The long list of things that belong on this list

also I miss you. 

This thing we call high school.

If I take off the shoes that I used to walk across the stage, will it all be over?

I remember when we read Romeo and Juliet in freshman English and everybody laughed but secretly I wanted to feel the way that star-crossed lovers could.

and I did at some point, I'm sure of it.

People say I'm strong because going to three different high schools isn't an easy thing to do, but I just laugh because it's easier than staying at one, that's for certain.

Sometimes I tell stories about my life and as soon as I am finished I realize that the whole thing was a lie and it never actually happened in reality. But I don't tell anyone that I imagined the whole thing, because nobody likes to be thought of as a liar.

I kissed 6 boys in all of high school and I'm not sure if I actually liked any of them.

All of the boys I did like I was always too scared to kiss. Nobody wants to give away lip cells when they actually mean something.

Remember when Daniel Chen was a nerd and Erin Lowman was popular and nobody talked to somebody like Judy Hutson? Remember when Mary Hutchins was the queen of the school even though half of her friends didn't like her and Chad (the boy that looks like Lenny the Shark) was a loser? Remember how every girl wanted to talk to Zac Collins, but his own friends wouldn't hang out with him?

I do, I think. Or maybe I just made this all up and these people don't matter at all.

I wore short floral shorts to school sophomore year and I still regret that day because Jacob Miller doesn't like girls that wear short floral shorts.



It doesn't matter if I live in Boise or Beaverton or Forest Grove because high school is the same and we all lose our sense of romance after four years of supposed education anyways.

I don't think my parents have checked on me in years.

I could have lived without the changing friend groups, but I'm glad I had a basement door that led up a steep flight of stairs to my backyard so I could escape my thoughts at 2 am when my neighbor wanted Taco Bell.

Maybe sleeping on the trampoline under the stars didn't mean we were cool, and maybe Taylor Swift wasn't singing to make us happier, maybe she just wanted to let herself know it was going to be okay.

High school is all in our heads and if any of us were brave enough to climb down the ladder that led us up into the clouds in the first place we would realize that our dreams make up half of our reality and that boy that sat next to us in AP literature is nothing but a bunch of atoms and particles carved by the hand of God to distract us from Edgar Allen Poe's words of tragedy.

We can kiss boys and we can wear floral shorts and we can tell lies and we can even fantasize over Romeo and Juliet if we want and that doesn't mean that we want to end up dead. Three different high schools in three different cities and two different states over three and a half years doesn't mean that we like change. It just means that we are not in control over our own lives.
and that is okay.

Maybe I shouldn't have graduated after three and a half years. Maybe if I had stayed that extra semester in Oregon instead of running off to BYU where I knew I would be safe, I would be that strong girl that everyone back home talked about.

If I had stood proud on top of a lunch table and let the world know what I believed in, something like Samuel, high school could have been a construction zone. It could have been a place where I built my life.

But instead I am just waiting to get out of here again and run back to BYU where I can build there. I'm just waiting and telling myself that I will be a better person once this is all over.
I whisper to myself late at night, "It's all about the circumstance."

"As soon as I'm in better circumstances, of course I will change my life around. Of course."

And that is the thing that we call high school.

And this is the thing that we call a dream.

By any other name

Forest Grove, Oregon.
In case you are wondering Forest Grove is nothing like a Grove.

Have you ever missed every single place on this Earth that you have ever been? Every place except for the place that you are right now?

We deserve mountain tops and deep hidden valleys. We deserve a lake where we can sit with our almost-lover that we are too awkward to define anything with. We can cast a fishing line that will float out to the middle of the deep water along with all of our late school assignments and missed calls from mom. We deserve good food and music that doesn't quite match our current mood but it's the only thing on Spotify and we already used all of our skips for the hour.



Or maybe we don't deserve these things but it's the least this universe could do for leaving us here in this town that somebody called a grove.
We could lock this town up forever if we wanted. We could throw the key into Hells Canyon or grind it up and sprinkle it over rice so the children in Singapore could finally get some protein in their diets.

But we don't because somewhere deep inside our hearts (probably somewhere near the left ventricle) we know that this town built us, or we built it, or maybe we both just sat around while the armies of adults that gave us lunch detention and cut our sandwhiches and gave us 78% on art projects that deserved much higher built this town and us. Maybe. or maybe we are all just foxes and our minds are fleeting and this life is just a practice for us all because the eternities will be perfect.



Forest Grove is not a Grove and nobody wants it to be.

I believe we are right back to where we started. I surely do believe.

I like that you write beautiful words, and I also like that I am trying
I think it's funny when you ask me if your pants match your shirt
The creators of Star Trek put a horn on a dog and pretended it was an alien, but nobody cared because people don't watch Star Trek just because they like the way the aliens look
I don't like you just because your pants match your shirt, either
I pretend that I am interested in every word that leaves your sometimes chapped lips, but if we are being honest, (and we are) I don't particularly care about a lot of things
You don't always pretend that you are interested in me
Sometimes that will irk me, but most of the time I like it because it means you are not a pretender
I would like to become less of a pretender, I think. I haven't quite decided though
Your eyes tend to shred me
S-H-R-E-D
I don't melt, or get the butterflies, or even get the warm and fuzzies
I just shred
Each time I look at you a small piece of myself just slips off
I imagine it flutters to wherever pieces of people usually go
It's slightly terrifying because what if one day there isn't enough of me to take you in?
What if I become too small, too shredded, to process what the funny freckles on your nose look like when you laugh?
What if I can't internalize the smell of that lime green soccer jersey that I hate so much?
You don't even like soccer
I like you though, and if you don't like soccer then maybe I don't either
If you don't like me, then maybe I don't either
But then again, that would be so silly to like you, a separate being, if I didn't even like my own self, now wouldn't it?
Now wouldn't it.