knowing
the second part. supplemental reading to my song, "crash on the couch"
It’s a Friday in late-ish February, and it’s nearing midterm season. Which means that soon, schoolwork is about to take over my life, and it will make me want to bash my skull in with a very large rock. With juggling my final months of undergrad, being a double major, graduating early, writing and making new music to put out, I feel like I should be celebrating in anticipation of these things, but I’m not. It almost feels fake. Or like I didn’t really earn it, because the past two years of school have been virtual. It all just feels like too much, or not enough, and I find myself almost…dreading it. But, I’ve also been talking to somebody new a lot, and if I’m being honest, I enjoy that a whole lot more.
My phone glows amidst its otherwise dim surroundings for probably the fifty-sixth time today. We’ve been talking, calling, and messaging back and forth for a good chunk of every single day for a little while now. It almost scares me how well it feels like he knows me and how well I think I know him.
I know his favorite color is navy blue, but forest green has been a runner-up lately. He knows mine are lavender and sage green. I know he’s a lefty and that his handwriting is absolutely atrocious. He knows I’m right-handed and that I prefer writing in cursive because it’s just easier. I know he can restring a guitar in a little less than six minutes. He knows (and despises) that I haven’t gotten around to replacing my guitar strings in almost three years. I know he loves Borges and Kafka, and I know he’s been wanting to read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. He knows I love Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, and Virginia Woolf, and that I’ve been rereading One Day by David Nicholls, one of my favorite romance novels of all time (mainly because I’ve brought the book up in nearly every conversation we’ve had up to this point, but still). I know he loves Big Thief, Jimi Hendrix, the Yankees, and the winter. He knows I love Joni Mitchell, Taylor Swift, that I’m not big on sports (but that my family and I have been long-time supporters of the Warriors), and how I love the colder months, like he does.
It seems I’d found my perfect pair, my other half. The yin to my yang; my twin flame. He doesn’t ask for much, which is nice for a change. With everyone preceding him, they all seemed to want something from me, but not necessarily me. But he doesn’t do that, and he won’t, either. I can tell.
And now we’re talking on the phone via FaceTime. Every now and then he takes a screenshot, which I bashfully pretend not to notice. There’s a warm, flowery feeling in my gut, knowing my stupid, candidly, smiling face will be in his camera roll forever. He’s talking about college and the ridiculous things required for classes as a music major, like growing out thumbnails in order to execute a specific technique of guitar playing. He’s showing me a YouTube video to explain what he means, and I’m equal parts grossed out and entertained. I’m smiling bigger and laughing harder than I have in a very long time. And amidst all this, inside my chest, I can feel my heart breathe a big sigh of relief, as if to say: Been a while, hasn’t it?
I’m writing every day again. I’m hearing love songs and I relate to them. I’m not grimacing anymore, not wrinkling every time I hear a sappy lyric. I miss him, but he’s at my fingertips. He laughs for me, and simultaneously my mom says it’s nice to see me smiling again. I don’t tell her why, not yet. I show him something I’ve written, and each time, he tells me he’s impressed with my mind, and I can tell he’s not just saying it. He’s telling the truth. My thoughts are narrating themselves in his jargon now, singing themselves in melodies he’s composed, and it’s a nice change. I find snippets of myself within his syntax and it feels like a secret only we know. It’s happening so fast, and it’s happening so slow. It’s been years, and it’s been seconds. For better and for worse, I don’t know yet. In a parallel dimension, definitely. Everything’s great and everything sucks. But still, there’s a greeting in the morning and a wish before I go to bed: “Sleep well,” he says, every single night, and then, “We’ll talk soon.”
listen to “crash on the couch” (out on all streaming platforms):
THIS IS SO CUTE WHAT
so adorable omg