girllast

[girllast]

TONI SHALIFOE ✼ The Wilds S01E04: day six “Every ignorant shit who’s ever told you to get yourself under control should just try being young and scared with your heart on the line. Control’s not easy. Control’s a fucking fantasy.”

#hmMMM

[girllast]

girl unpredictable (being accused of being too normal or too predictable as a child by her father)

hero parent subpar kid

not noticeable enough to be bullied

big reader

how angry can you be + anger unlocked

still waters run deep, but not still

girl, last

[girllast]

[ (hackett) you see the girl of your dreams across the way. she's laying with her back flat on the bench, basking in the overcast rays beneath the lonely tree. you watch as her ink stained fingers brush against the page of her book and you wonder how those fingers will feel against your skin. your dream girl finishes her chapter. she starts the next, her chipped manicure traces the first harrowing line as she flashes those warm, welcoming veins at you. she's showing off. for you. she knows your watching, she must. you wait till the sun dips and she realizes that time escaped her. she slides off the bench and grabs her coat, her purse, before running off home. she doesn't look at you, but she knows you're there. she must. why else would she be waltzing her way home after your meeting in the park. she's the girl of your dreams after all. ]

sunlight pools on today’s bench near the tire swing tree, and I know it’s perfect. heat is hitting my back before I’ve even stretched out, but it’s alright. I have some time before sunset and at this rate the oncoming evening cool won’t make me regret not bringing another layer. the pillow I’ve arranged my jacket into is a non-negotiable.

just like I thought, this was a perfect spot for today. a knot of kids nearby are talking a mile a minute but not so loud that my brain feels like a middle school gym. there’s still space to hear myself think. I prop my head up on my bag, book on my knees. that way my surroundings are in the story now. or maybe it’s the other way around.

this book is wild. some sentences feel like climbing up a waterfall while others have the same effect as that kind of lazy river glide in an inner tube I remember from seventh grade. it’s not sweet, but it’s tart. enough to sting. the words get on my skin and under my tongue. I can almost tell myself they’re rubbing off on me. instead the ink is the same dumb reminder of the rest of the yearbook club letting me down while I sketch up the next idea for club spotlights and superlatives. (do those really matter? does anyone ever walk around their college campus or interrupt a business meeting by boasting about being voted most likely to become president?) the assigned teaching supervisor may have crappy pens, but there’s more where that came from. at least I’ve got her to help. at least it’s my last year before I can leave.

There is a striking resemblance between the act of love and the ministrations of a torturer.

whoa. where did that come from? I run my finger under the line a few times, testing the sound in my head. and I have to snort. whether or not the sentence is true, I’m reminded again that my nails won’t repaint themselves no matter how much I will them to. whatever. maybe tomorrow. I’ve got to figure out why love is like torture first. slowly, after countless paragraphs, I can feel the recycled polystyrene bench at my back losing its heat and the edges of sunlight above me are turning purple. damn! it’s more than time to go. I slip the ratty coffee shop punch card into the book’s crease, locking in my spot for next time. jacket in hand and book in bag, i start for home, thoughts full of the words i’d read. what a discovery! I’m really glad the title didn’t scare me off.

a small chill dances down my back as I walk, but it tickles. I laugh, glad for a bit of cool air to send me on my way.