Little Kid Logic

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      The worst things that our mothers ever taught us were that mean little boys with balled up fists and scowling faces were secretly in love with us, so now my dyslexia only kicks in with the words I’m sorry because to me they look I love you . And I’ve rearranged those letters into every fairytale daydream my backwards mind could come up with. You don’t love me. But my third grade brain and my aching pigtailed head tells me that my broken heart is just a token of you being crazy about me.

     Since when did it become okay to color inside the lines. Cause Not so long ago we used our fingers to paint pictures and tell time. And what’s wrong with us. We need everyone to know we’re pretty but we never seem to mention that we’re smart. All I ever used to want to be was smart. I may not know how to find x or y. But I’ll never need that anyway. Instead can my algebra teacher tell me how many fake friends do you need before you’re considered cool. And how much practice do I need to be perfect at school.  And you watch your parents fight but you don’t get graded on how well you can multi task. You only get graded on how well you pay attention in class. We drink and get high because the schools took away play time.  We don’t know how to share anymore, so either it’s yours or it’s mine. We used to sing songs to learn letters. Now we listen to songs to feel better. And if we analyzed all of our middle school love notes in English class I may actually get an A. Because Shakespeare never taught us how to focus in class when the only person you’ve ever loved broke your heart earlier that day. But in 5th grade Troy Bolton taught us that just because you play basketball doesn’t mean you can’t sing, and lord knows I love it when you sing. And my alarm clock makes my ears ring. And I’ve got science first hour but we never learned about the anatomy of a heart. I’m talking about the one inside your head not the one beating behind your breast. And the casualties in our history books sound like nothing compared to the war inside your chest.

     See, I’m 17 now. This means I’ve spent 17 years tiptoeing around people’s feelings terrified of stepping on someone’s heart. But I’m clumsy and I shatter them like iphone faces. When I got in trouble when I was little I would write my parents apology letters and put them under their pillows. So for every guy whose heart I’ve ever dropped I’d write you a 1000 letters for every one of your pillows. I’d buy you a lifetime supply of power ranger Band-Aids with my name on them so you know I’m therefore you every time that you’re hurt. And I never meant for you to get hurt. Because the worst thing that your fathers ever taught you was that you could never cry in front of little pigtailed girls with Barbie dolls and shy faces. But we need you to cry in front of us. Remind us that your heart beats at the same speed as ours and you’re fragile too and your stomach drops when we hold your hands. Do not tell us that ‘I hate you’ really means ‘I love you’ because we need you to know that we love you so we’ll tell you ‘I hate you’ until our tongues bleed all the reasons you should never give us a second chance. But give us a second chance.  And girls give boys a second chance. Because what you see is what you get. And everything we need to know, we learned when we were little kids. 

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