KIDS AND LOVE
May 11th 2008 12:59
Our young love is different. It’s hard to understand. At first it starts off with a conversation, or even just a word, or maybe not even a word – all it could be is a smile from across the room, a smile up close, a kiss behind the ear. And afterwards the love pours down like cheap alcohol, smothering our entire bodies with every single emotion you could think of. Our love will never have a definition. We’ll call it love, but we’ll change its meaning when we’re angry, when we’re happy, when we’re talking to friends or parents or therapists or our journals or ourselves.
My young love started like this: a conversation, an e-mail address, a phone number, a date, and from there she became a partner. She became a camera that photographed me and giggled as I drove. She became a hand holding mine in the cinema, in a party, in the car, on the walkway. She became a set of eyes that watched me sleep, a short skirt on my birthday and a candle that glowed and overpowered the tonne of black night sky around us. She became my encouragement as I’d write, she became the force behind my studying, that girl I carried as we ran around the beach, the girl that danced and then giggled when she caught me watching. She became sinking bed sheets, cotton pillows and closed and opened curtains, cigarette ember and smoke, music volume raised and my partner against the fucked up world. She became someone who recognised my new clothes and old clothes. She became a set of crying eyes, an angry yell before a dead silent mobile phone. She became a slap on the face. She became yells and things thrown and making up and making out. She became this bright, piercing thing inside my heart. She became the source of my everything, the thought behind every second pulse, every first pulse; I’d be happy because of her, I’d hate because of her, and there was no piece of advice or parent or best friend that could change what either of us felt. She then became a rare phone call, a gradual decline in interest. She became a photo, a memory, that story to sometimes pick out of my brain or heart, this short piece I now write. We annoyed everyone, we were ridiculous, we only ever spoke and complained and bragged about each other, but who cares, that was it, we were in love, that was it, that was us, that was our young love, and when I closed my eyes I remembered the way she’d touch my face and smile and tell me that I was worth something.
Young love exists behind our young masks. We smile and fuck and smoke and get cut and go to parties and drink but deep down, it’s that love story that’s the most important to us. Our radio stations are littered with songs that all deal with love and sap and corny lines that we all secretly listen to and adore. We won’t admit it, but we’ve fallen in love with our friends and have never told them. We’ve fallen in love with a teacher or two and have never told them. We’ve fallen in love from simple, stupid embraces or compliments or gestures we so desperately needed at the time. We’ve fallen in love with actors and musicians and posters and cartoons and friends’ partners and statements and arguments and ideas and ourselves and these feelings either stay with us, stay well and deep within us, or sometimes these feelings last only a second, or a second of a second and vanish and appear where we won’t see them again. Our hearts are forever damaged, but their shapes are always changing. There’s nothing that affects our sex more, our decisions more, our beings more, our anger more, our sadness more, our stupidity more, our thoughts more than this beautiful, tragic monster scrape along the road.
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Comment by Tim_booth
Cheers Dean
Comment by Always Eighteen
Always Eighteen
I can think of about a thousand pop titles to reply to you with right now
Comment by Anonymous