You broke my heart once. You shattered it into a thousand little pieces, yet I don’t feel at all upset anymore. It’s funny really, all in one day, you broke my heart like an antique plate dropped on the floor, then you pieced me back together, without missing a beat, all in the words you said. You said you appreciated me. Every word you have ever spoken to me I have believed because I’m either a really stupid girl, or over the last seven months you, my love, you have become so important to me that you have skyrocketed to the top of my best friend list. This isn’t the first time my heart was ripped out of my chest by you though. It’s happened two other times before now. One in an instant that was the most amazing moment of my entire summer. A good memory, that I will always cherish, because even though it’s slightly somber to think of, it was the exact moment I realized I was absolutely in love with you. The second was the moment, the day before I did something completely out of character, the day my car broke down, right after you confessed to me that I would be nothing to you but the girl you called your friend, the friend that went to bars with you, and got into your bed after a long night of drinking vodka sours. The girl whose clothes ended up on your floor before her heart ended up in the trash where you threw it away every following morning.
There are many things you have affected in my life with your eyes, vibrant personality, and lack of singing skills. I’m not sure what order this is all going to be in, which would be first: the three heartbreaks or everything you either ruined, enhanced, or changed in me, and the world around me? Let’s start by telling you about the very first time I fell in love with you. I’d like to preface this with a fact, because random facts about me is something I like to tell you. I like to tell you everything about me. I love that you listen. Fact number one: I have only been in love three times in my twenty years on this earth. The first time was when I was only 15. I met a boy online, he lives in Texas. He was my first “boyfriend.” It showed me it’s easy to fall in love with someone for who they are because we never met in person. I still to this day am not sure if I was really in love, but I always count him. The second time was when I was 17-18. You know how that one turned out because I’ve confessed it all to you. He made me sad. He tore me apart. But never in my life have I ever felt more torn apart than I have when it was you. He ruined me, but you did nothing, but help me grow. I know I’ve written this a million times, but I want it to get through your fucking head, I love you. I love you more than anyone I’ve ever loved and I hate myself for that. I know when I texted you I said that I only had feelings, didn’t explain how deep they were. I am in love with you. Which, by the way, is the worst thing in the entire world. You’re the absolute worst fucking person to be in love with.
You’re an amazing person, one of my best friends, actually. Here’s the thing though, your soul, your poor fucking soul is one of the coldest things I have ever felt in my entire life. The dark eclipse within you sucks the life out of me. The sunlight that I truly believe is somewhere deep within, just hidden by the bruises of lips from iced lover who ruined you in the past, the same bruises you leave in me, is so hard to find. I know for a fact you have a soul, I’ve seen you light up when you talked about your last girlfriend, and how “she has fucked you up to the point where you don’t know if you can come back,” the songs that remind you of her. Do you ever light up when you talk to your friends about me like that? Are there songs that remind you of me? Am I even on your mind like she is? Do you even talk to your friends about me? I know all of those are true cases about you for me. My friends know about you. They hear me talk about you every single day. You’re always on my mind. I dream about you. Dreams that I can’t even explain to you because I know if I ever speak them into the universe they will disintegrate into the atmosphere, and I will lose the feeling of you holding me in my brain.
I will tell you about the music that reminds me of you. Well, the two songs in particular that also represent the first moment I knew I loved you:
Africa by Toto (Weezer Cover).
Say It Ain’t So by Weezer.
I never make plans on a whim. I’m an anxious girl who has to have everything on a set schedule that isn’t allowed to change. I have planners for everything, notebooks for all my lists, and messy thoughts. One day I out of the blue bought tickets for Weezer. I didn’t plan on asking someone to go beforehand. But why would a 120 pound, 5 foot 3 little girl go to a concert on the lawn where pot heads, and alcoholics alike all crowd around? I needed someone tall to cover me. I needed you. Which I would later sit down to write this letter and realize I needed you in more ways than just as a human shield.
I texted you while I was at work, terrified. I shook to my core typing out the message asking you what you’d be doing that night. We had never hung out, and we definitely stopped talking multiple times in the two years following that one weird day when I was a freshman in college, and messaged you on Instagram to give you my number. I just figured a tall, tattooed emo man child would be someone fun to take to a concert, plus, all my friends had other plans, and though I hate to break it to you, you were my last option. You texted back quicker than I anticipated and agreed to go with me. You didn’t find it strange that I, Erin Schwartz, randomly messaged you, a MONTH before we even needed to buy tickets.
The drive down to your house was nerve racking and exciting. I was a big ball of stress. I changed my outfit a million times because what the fuck do you wear to a Weezer concert with a boy you completely don’t know? Here’s what I remember that night:
1) I couldn’t find your house, and you were polite about it, and helped me figure out where the hell I was parking.
2) You talked to me when I first got there like it wasn’t the first time we met. You weren’t weird about it, and you made me feel comfortable enough to drink.
3) Tagging off number 2, that alcohol you bought was the bees knees.
4) As we sat on your back porch drinking out of red solo cups you talked about high school, and how miserable it was. You talked about Lil Peep, and Cold Hart, which by the way, was one of those moments that I told you about the other day that are my favorite memories of hanging out with you –you light up when you talk about music. Your eyes glow, your smile beams, and your words come out in a fast flowing stream of consciousness like a pipe busted, and the water has nowhere to go but out.
5) We were about to go in, and I was up against the wall, near your door, and you got close to me. You pressed your hands on each side of my head, on the wall. I felt your breath on my skin, your eyes flickered, and as your words slowed down for the first time in what felt like days I could have sworn you were gonna kiss me. I know it was me who moved slightly to my left to go in because you overwhelmed me. To this day, you overwhelm me.
6) You held my hand in the uber. You initiated it. Or maybe I did, but still. You held my hand in the car, and walking for me to go pee, and in line for my vodka & coke, and to where we wanted to stand. My hands go numb when they’re in yours. The only thing I pray for everyday is that my hands never fucking lay in yours again.
7) Flash forward to the actual concert. Here is where my songs about you come into play:
· Africa By Toto. That song was playing, you were dancing next to me, and you looked me into my eyes, and said “can I kiss you during Africa by Toto?”Every single time I hear that god forsaken song I picture you, and in the back of my head I hear your words repeating.
· Say It Ain’t So. This, now this song is the exact moment I knew I was in love with you. You stood behind me. Your arms were wrapped around me, our hands intertwined. You kissed me twice. We both sang the lyrics to this song at the top of our lungs while holding each other. My stomach does backflips when I hear this song, even to this day, even when I’m writing this letter with tears in my eyes.
There you go. Congratulations, you have ruined my favorite band in the goddamned world with your kisses, your rough skin against mine. Every time I hear a weezer song, which is EVERY SINGLE DAY because they’re my favorite, I think of you. I think of how much I love you. I think about all the times I pictured us together. All the times you held my hand. All the times your lips kissed the top of my head. I picture us in love, except I’m looking at you, you’re looking to your left in the middle of a conversation because you will never see me the way I see you: the most beautiful creation in this world, tattooed, strong, yet soft, with the most infectious laugh I’ve ever had the honor to hear. I’m honored to have heard your laugh when we laid in bed. To have heard your singing voice, though it’s slightly tone deaf. I am blessed by whatever force created us, that they had the decency to create us in the same lifetime – to cross paths, even if that path ends with me falling off a cliff as you’re laughing to another girl about how amazing her writing is, when my writing sits here being ignored by your mind, just like my heart and soul being ignored, crushed by your dark, cold, heart.
Thank you for being my muse for my writing.
Thank you for destroying my soul, and igniting the fire within it all at the same time.
Thank you for showing me what being in love really does feel like, even if it’s just as sicken as the words you speak to me. Even if it really does tear me apart as if I’m just your paper doll to play with.
I will forever appreciate you.
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