Quiet Boy

By Extra Small

There is a very quiet boy in my class. He is cute.

He doesn’t talk a lot, so I don’t know if he’s smart.

But I don’t want to judge him.

He doesn’t laugh at the same things other people do

When we are watching a documentary in class he actually watches it.

He waits for people to exit the door when he’s prolly been wanting to leave the class for a long time.

He’s always plugged into something.

I hope it’s not anything too heavy or American rock-typey stuff.

I feel guilty for hoping that.

I wonder if he likes Lord of the Rings or if he judges people who like Lord of the Rings.

There are only two kinds of people when it comes to that, right?

I don’t think he thinks about himself too much.

He is probably an altruistic angel.

In fact, he is probably morally superior to everyone around him.

Quiet but not shy.
He’s perfect

for now.

He Says

By Late Night Writings

“No matter what, I don’t think I’ll ever believe you.”

Then we went back to talking about the usual stuff. My day was okay. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. His day was busy. His days are always busy, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. Either of us could have said more about our days. Either of us probably would have liked to hear more about our days. We like listening to each other talk, even if neither of us ever have anything interesting to say. Neither of us like to talk much though.

It was one of the rare days that one of us could start a more substantial conversation. The subject got us both talking. We both replied to the other’s comments with more than five words. Somehow, I think we both managed to make a lot of our responses more than one sentence. More than five words. More than two words. That doesn’t happen often. I think we were talking like that for a little over five minutes. It didn’t feel long, but it felt long. Maybe if the conversation had stayed on the initial topic, it would have gone on for even longer. But it didn’t. It turned a corner and led us somewhere else.

I was still giving instinctive responses. Just saying the first things that came to mind. He gave me an opinion that I didn’t agree with. I asked him to elaborate. He did. I still didn’t like it. The conversation didn’t turn into an argument or anything, but the mood was definitely different now. He wasn’t too defensive, I wasn’t too aggressive. He explained his position the best he could and I understood why he held that opinion, but I still didn’t like it. I said that it’s a good thing I love him. Then, he said he loves me too. He said it with confidence. He said it like he meant it. But then I said it. I said it with confidence. I said it like I meant it. I said that I don’t and probably won’t ever believe that he loves me. It might be true. I might not believe that he loves me. He might care about me, he might like me, he might like like me, but I don’t think he loves me. I’m not sure how he took it. We both brushed it aside and changed the topic immediately. I don’t think it’s because either of us were afraid of addressing the issue. I think we both just need some time to think about it. We need to wait until we both have the energy for another short, long five-minute conversation.  Maybe longer.

Pompous and Single

By Late Night Writings

I feel like shit pretty much all the time, but I function well enough to do what I need to do. I’m miserable, but I use it to my advantage. My life isn’t that bad, really. I have some pretty good things in here. I just don’t let them make me feel better about myself because they aren’t the things that I want to make me feel good. I don’t want nonspecific joys. I want incredibly specific joys. I only want those joys. When one of those nonspecific things plugs the drain in my tank of happiness, I will yank that plug out and let the happiness drain. I want to be fixed by what I want to fix me. Those are things I probably won’t get. Maybe I only want them because I can’t have them, but I really fucking want them, so I am going to get them. I’ll put forth all my effort. I will use all my patience waiting. I will make more patience and more effort to use. I will be happy on the terms I want and I won’t let the happiness from stupid little things infect me. Those should-be-grateful-for things that I am not grateful for. I will be spoiled. I will let myself be spoiled. I want to spoil myself with the weird things that I want. I want to go across that bridge. I am not talking about a metaphorical bridge, I am talking about that little bridge that’s completely unnecessary. I will walk up that delightful staircase at the end of that street I would otherwise not have a reason to visit. I will get fucked in a magnificently expansive field in the middle of the day. I will go see that abandoned building. I’m trying to sound like I have a specific building in mind, but I don’t. I want somebody else to choose for me and I want them to take me there. Spontaneously. I want to do all these things with somebody I love to be with and I want to feel like they love to be with me. I want them to be as excited about my stupid adventures as I am. Maybe two people. Maybe three people. As long as we all enjoy each other, love bridges, stairs, fucking in fields, going to buildings, and every other stupid thing I might want to do or they might want to do that I want to do too. I want to feel that belonging. I want to satisfy my self. I want to live the life I want to live, the life I see, the life I think of. If I can be happy in the one I’m in, I don’t care. I don’t care about this life that I am living. I want the life I want, and I want to be happy in there.

I will do every unnecessarily specific thing I want to do. I will do every single one of them and it will make me happier than I deserve to be. But I want to be that happy, so I will be that happy. I’m going to do it and I will be nauseatingly proud of being as happy as I will be. People will look at me and know that I have what I want, just because the smile I’ll be wearing will be as pompous as I will feel. That smile will be my badge of achievement. It will let everyone know that I am happier than they will ever be. In the mirror, it will remind me that the effort I put into getting what I want brought me all of it and more. My pompous smile will be worn proudly.

Victoria's Diary

By Late Night Writings

I’m a dramatic person and it does actually cause a lot of unnecessary problems, but I’m not going to change. Katy didn’t respond to my text yesterday. It was a question. Isn’t she terrible? I certainly think so. Darla didn’t like a tweet I posted last week. That’s the first time she hasn’t liked one of my tweets, since she started following me on Twitter five months ago. What kind of statement is she trying to make? I think she’s trying to say she’s better than me. Nobody is too good for my tweets, especially not Darla Peggy Pots. That’s right, her middle name is Peggy. Nobody can pull that one off. I know you might think these things sound stupid and I want you to know that I think they sound stupid, too. I used to get really hung up on how stupid this sort of stuff is. I’d get home from a date and immediately tell myself that “I made such a fucking mistake” because I didn’t get great vibes when he dropped me off. Vibes. Then I would get angry at myself for having that reaction. Then I would get upset with myself for getting angry at myself for having that reaction. It went in circles. Now, I just let myself feel my stupid feelings and I don’t get angry. I’m better for it. I throw a tantrum, cry, tell myself “I need to stop making these stupid fucking mistakes”, and then I get over it. Now that I don’t let myself get angry at myself for being irrational, I recover from irrationality a lot faster. I still know I’m an idiot, but I don’t get mad at myself for it. Being dramatic keeps me connected to my feelings. My many feelings. Well, I guess I don’t have a big variety of feelings. By “many feelings”, I mean I feel two or three things very often. Those would be disappointment, sadness, and frustration. That’s just me. I’ve accepted it. I still feel the other ones, for sure, but not as much. Just last week, I was real happy because I was getting the attention I needed. It sounds a bit pathetic, but people just need attention sometimes. That applies to everyone. The really pathetic part of it is that I felt like shit after because I felt bad for relying on other people to feel good about myself. Yeah, I think I need help. Anyway, I’m in-touch with my feelings. I get them. Obviously, I’m big on overthinking things and that helps me understand myself. I’ve tried a lot of things to get myself to be normal. Nothing sticks. Nothing ever sticks. Nobody ever sticks. Around. For long. Anyway, nothing sticks and I think I need to stop worrying about that. If I can’t change, I really need to stop trying to. What am I going to do to fix the problem? I’ll control it. I’m not going to get better. All I can do is keep myself in check. Know when I’m overreacting. Katy isn’t really terrible. She was busy and I knew she was busy. I also need to recognize when I’m one-hundred percent right. Darla is absolutely playing a game. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have told everyone about her fugly middle name. She’s not going to win this one. I know I’ll change in other ways. I might be more refined. I might be more confident. I might be more exciting. I won’t be changing in this way though. I will always be overly dramatic. I will always read too far into things and read too far into things that aren’t there. I’m never going to process my emotions in a normal way. This is me. I’m not perfect. I’m not amazing. I’m fine.

Before Midnight

By Late Night Writings

The pungent odor of the bodies wafted from one side of the room to the other, into the vent and upwards through the entire ventilation system, filling the cliffside estate with the putrid scent of his rotting corpse. The windows were barred and the doors were somehow completely impenetrable. The one potential exit that remained was off the widow’s walk, where Thomas had attempted to climb down, but quickly and unfortunately discovered that the heavy downpour and harsh sea winds had made that route of escape far too dangerous. Mangled in the thorns and covered by soggy dead leaves in the garden below, his body reminded the few people who remained that escaping was not an option. In the three days they had been there, it seemed that they hadn’t come any closer to unmasking Doctor Horn’s killer. Hanging from an elk’s antlers mounted above the fireplace, his dead eyes stared down at the home’s guests. The house who lured its suspects inside and promised to open its doors to whoever uncovered the identity of its lover’s murderer. The guests who sat down, who gave up after frantically searching for anything that could lead them to the truth, and accepted their reality - that their careers in finance and marketing were no help in this scenario and that they would be killed by a house in less than four hours. They would not find Doctor Horn’s killer before the fourth midnight.

Suitable

By Late Night Writings

Letter One: Looks
I never liked you for your mind, your personality, or talents, but you're pretty hot, so I figured "hey, I may as well settle for this." I do like you, don't worry about that. I just like you for reasons that I don't particularly care about. Your looks aren't all that you have, either. You're so tolerable and I don't mind spending time with you. I could see myself not minding spending the rest of my life with you. Your flaws are very easy to look away from and you are really hot. Besides, I couldn't get Jude Law no matter what I tried, but at least you have similar cheekbones.

Letter Two: Personality
You have a wonderful personality and I can't find a reason to like you beyond that. You are such a nice person and I love that about you. You're not the cutest or the smartest, but you are genuinely the most kind of all my suitors. Why shouldn't I choose to be with someone like you? You would never hurt me or lie to me. It's just a flat roller coaster with a nice scenery. Although the scenery is a bit lacking here and there. The point is that you won't complicate things and that's worth having.

Letter Three: Smarts
At times, I can't even believe how smart you are. I've never found anyone else who I can go on and on with about the most profound topics. I deeply enjoy the conversations we share. I'm impressed - very impressed - so please stop trying to impress me. You've already got me hooked! You are so smart, yes, I know. You must know something about dating, beyond theories and trivia. You must have some actual how-to after reading so much Jane Austen. It's time to tie me down! Get to it!

I Love Lucas

By Late Night Writings

“Wait, you said no? Why? Haven't you been together for, like, eight years?”

“A few more than that.”

“Ten?”

“Add a few more.”

“You’ve been together for more than ten years and you said no.”

“It didn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean? It sounds like he put a lot of effort into it. If anyone did that for me, I would have said yes. You’ve been a package deal for as long as I’ve known you. What’s that about? Do you just not even like him? Why?”

The conversation continued for about half an hour before I could convince her to drop it. She had always looked up to my relationship with Lucas and she would have given anything to have something even reminiscent of our relationship. She grew up yearning for her dream guy and to be happily wed after a two-year relationship. Marriage has never been one of my goals. It doesn’t appeal to me and I don’t see a reason for it. Sure, there are some great financial benefits and all the free toasters and towels might have been nice, but we didn’t need any of those things. We’re well-off on our own. I’m happy with my insurance plan and he’s happy with his, so we don’t need that. We make enough money to live comfortably and we can easily afford the occasional luxe pampering. We don’t need more toasters; I like the one we have. We don’t need any more towels; only I know what I like in a towel. For us, getting married wouldn’t have meant much. I already know how much he loves me and (I hope) he already knows how much I love him. Though, honestly, I hadn’t put a lot of thought into why I’m so strongly opposed to getting married, until I had that conversation. The fact that it changes nothing is an argument that can be used pro-marriage just as well as it can be used for anti-marriage. It’s not like we would have to switch over to one insurance plan. It’s not like we would have to receive useless wedding gifts or even have a wedding. I thought about it for awhile and after hours spent pondering, I could only come up with a few reasons; they might not be the best reasons, but here they are:

Marriage is a social construct and not giving into society’s expectations for a young woman makes me feel powerful. From such a young age, women are force-fed the idea that the absolute pinnacle of their life will be their wedding day. For some of them, it might be, but it’s not even close to being that way for most people. I want young unmarried women to be just as accepted as young unmarried men are. In fact, I want people to stop differentiating between men and women completely. I don’t even want gender to be a concept because that’s a social construct too and we don’t need that shit. I want us all to just be people with different parts that do different things. If at all, it’s going to take centuries to eliminate unnecessary social constructs, so I’m not going to hold my breath for it, but I hope it does happen eventually. Anyway, yes, the first reason for me not wanting to get married is that breaking free from societal boundaries is highly empowering and I hate that people are branded by their genitals.

My second reason is that it would be much easier to just break up rather than have to get a full-out officializing divorce, if we ever do decide to part ways. That’s not something I’ll be telling him, of course. Saying that to him might be a little concerning, as if saying directly to his face, “I have no faith in our relationship and I would rather it be as easy as possible to abandon ship when things go awry.” I have a lot of faith in my relationship with Lucas. I feel safe around him, I feel like he loves me, and I feel the same love for him, so I’m not worried that the ship will sink anytime soon or ever. However, if things do start going downhill, I want to get out as quickly and effortlessly as possible. I firmly believe that a relationship going sour should just be abandoned. Rough spots are totally fine - those happen with every couple - but a consistently unhappy relationship is unsalvageable and abandoning it would be the better option for everyone involved.

My third, final reason, is that I’m just afraid. I’m afraid of what it might do to my social life and of what might change in my relationship with him. I don’t think I’m ready for it. Even though I consider marriage a waste of time that means absolutely nothing, I feel like it will change everything. I feel like I’m not good enough for him to marry and I’m afraid that he might realize that, if we go through with it. I can’t accept that he would love me enough to legally declare himself eternally dedicated to me. I don’t know if I could handle being the one wife he gets to have. I can’t wrap my head around how much he must love me to say to me, “there is nobody else I would rather have as my wife and, if you choose to be, I will forever onward be as glad that you said yes as I am today.” I’ve never felt so loved before and part of me is trying as hard as it can to deny that it’s true. I don’t know what it would take to convince me, but I want to be, and I hope that I will be. I want to feel the love he tries to give me and I want to be as happy as I know it should make me.

Conceptual Piece Three

By Late Night Writings

Move again, reinvent again, become again, be again, begin again. Time passes so quickly. I feel like I only spend minutes here and there, before leaving again to start my life somewhere new. Even with all the time I have, I still achieve nothing. I have infinity, but I still feel like there’s not enough time for me to get anything done. There are things I’ve wanted to do for hundreds of years and I still haven’t done them. I don’t have a good excuse for why I haven’t. I never have had a good excuse and I never will have one. Thousands of years from now, I will still not be doing what I want to and I still won’t have an excuse for why I haven’t. That’s just how I am and it’s how I always will be. Truly forever, I will be lazy and inadequate. I haven’t explored the world. I haven’t gained an expansive knowledge of all things. I haven’t learned to play every instrument or even one. I have lived hundreds of lifetimes and I have not done anything that is worthy of even one.

Isaac Day, Infinitus Denizen 108, the one and only young of the immortals, aged to just 23 years; inaugurated to The Society of the Infinite in 1403 under the Oath of the Commoner.