for the loveless

This is a letter for the loveless.

I'm not sorry for you.

I am sorry for the freshly loveless, who's hearts have dropped two inches lower in their chests. I'm sorry for those who've run out of late night drives and overcooked brownies and question everything now.  I'm sorry for your broken playlists and hot showers that feel cold, but I'm not sorry for you.

Fresh wounds are at risk for opening up and bleeding. 

I used to share an opinion with a boy whose tousled hair and clean collars were the power source to my content behavior. The way we shared the straw and didn't question anything.  We liked music and built excuses to be alone on Friday nights.  And I liked that. I liked us.

But us was wrong. Us was too young.

So us became I.  And I became lonely.  It was Friday nights in groups, with girls whose eyes couldn't see into mine the same way his did.  When they asked me what I wanted, he wasn't there to strike up our opinion.  Because 'our' opinion stopped existing.

But 'I' isn't a bad place to be. It's not the fire pit of insane personal singularity.  It's not the destructive emptiness and it isn't driving past 'our' favorite fast food place with a craving for it.  Craving for 'us'.  'I' is better. It's better for the young.

'I' is half-price movie tickets and a large, selfish order of fries. It's kissing all of them.  It's painting your nails whatever color you want, and dinner for one at the price of one. It's being able to read, alone, without the fear of eager texts and obligated movie dates. It's less after school drive-thrus and more filled pages in your sketchbook.

Because you pay for yourself.  You paint for yourself. Nobody to draw for.  Nobody but you.

I'm not sorry for you. I'm not sorry for your books and bubble baths, your neat shirts and clean laundry, your limitless hairstyles and lost insecurities.

And you shouldn't be sorry either.

Because sometimes it's not what it seems.

-Jackie O