''I love being horribly straightforward. I love
sending reckless text messages (because how reckless can a form of digitized
communication be?) and telling people I love them and telling people they are
absolutely magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist. I love
saying, “Kiss me harder,” and “You’re a good person,” and, “You brighten my
day.” I live my life as straight-forward as possible. Because one day, I might get hit by a bus. I could be walking down the street one day, blasting Rihanna or Fleetwood
Mac, jamming so hard that I don’t see the bus coming. I could be walking with a
book in my hand, reading until the very end. I could be paying total and
complete attention, imagine the impact before it arrives.
And I’d really, really rather not die with some confusing statement I said
sitting in the phone or the thoughts or the memory of someone I know, care
about, need. I know how it is—we all want to be mysterious. None of us want to get hurt.
None of us want to look desperate. So we wait to respond to texts, phone calls,
emails, Facebook messages, Tweets. So we communicate our emotions in how we end
our messages (no period this time? Really gonna get them.). So we say vague,
half-statements and expect people to read our minds. But what if we died?
What if the last thing you ever texted that girl was, “I don’t know, whenever,”
when she asked when she should come over, even though you really really wanted
to see her right now? What if you were head-over-heels in lust with some
beautiful human in your Lit. class but you chose to wait 15 seconds before
texting them back, only to never get the chance to text them at all? Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to
just be—to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this
very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some
way whether its your feet on their thighs on the couch or your tongue in their
mouth or your heart in their hands.
But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate.
And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care.
We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in
control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the
magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans. We never know when the bus is coming.''
- Rachel C. Lewis
