"they say shit like "oh just go out and buy a plane ticket to
anywhere, go live life instead of worrying about him"
but who actually has the time or the cash for that
so instead i've opened the college manual on
how to scrub a boy out from every strand of hair
he ran his fingers through, instead i've started figuring out
the little things to make him wash out like
dip-dying your hair with the leftover bleach
from your sister's kit or maybe using red kool-aid for it
so when you stand in the shower you watch thin blood-colored streams
run down your ribs or maybe you learn to give your phone
to a more responsible adult when you go out to get drunk
because you kind of turn into a needy little shit (you're
starting to worry your friends are a million times done with it)
and you start learning how to force yourself into having fun
in little things like spooning chocolate icing out of
the container even though it's probably definitely not healthy
but it's better than going crazy trying to get thin again for him,
you learn not to let yourself get too introverted on rainy days because
that shit is a slippery slope right down into spending four hours
on his facebook page,
you learn to take long walks when you need to think
because that way at least you get some exercise since let's be real
you really just want to curl up in bed and stare at a wall until
the earth crumbles around your ears, you learn to dress
hot as hell just for yourself
because you're bammin-slammin-bootylicious,
you learn to be cool with leggings as pants despite the fact
when you were fourteen and trying too hard to be 'alternative' you
totally used to rage about how they're not actually,
you learn and you grow up and you cry about it some and then you
cry about it until it feels like you're gonna drown and then you have
a couple of days of just absolute blankness where you
kind of don't know if you're okay and then you have a couple of days
of being a fucking rainbow like hell yeah and then maybe you see
two people kissing and you start crying all over again and it's okay
because you learn to stretch out in the sun and to pet every animal
you come across even if it's something you're kind of scared of
and you learn and you learn and you learn and you kind of end up
becoming a whole different person and this will fuck with your head
for a little whenever you see him
because part of you will want to tell him
"i'm someone completely new now, i've buffed out some of my
flaws and i'm pretty fucking proud" but at the same time you
don't want to go back to where you were so you're in this weird "do
i actually talk to him" limbo - you learn that you still feel an odd kind
of queasy when you think about him and you really wanna puke when
you see him with her but you learn to take a deep breath
and not let it ruin your night and
to make out with random guys if you're into that and
you learn to do your homework on time and you
learn the people you can study with so you can copy from them and
you relearn how to make friends
and you learn that you're not the only one feeling broken and
you learn to be fine without him because eventually
some part of you remembers that you've had a whole life without him
and you were doing pretty good beforehand and
right now you might cry all day but you're getting better and
you're gonna be
okay."
