I can't smell anything anymore. The girl with the hair, you know the one I'm talking about, the one who looks like she spends an hour every morning just curling it just so, she's wearing so much of whatever that is making it impossible to smell anything. Really, though, I just have to wonder: if somebody actually loved her, would she really try so hard?
I shove my tray away from me. You don't know why. It's disgust, is why. I can't smell the food I'm shoveling into my mouth; why bother? A huge sigh. You don't notice. I decide to not sigh again.
Her boyfriend walks behind me and his jeans brush against my head. Can he not feel that? He sits down across from her. Good word, I hate her voice. Could he just reply, just even once, to put a break in the way her voice creeps across the air and falls like a slouching pain into my ears. But what is she talking about? I can hardly decipher her vast sea of "um" "like" "so" "you know" "whatever." I get the feeling like she's really struggling. She's reaching out to this boy who wears fashionable scarves and rolls up his sleeves and eats without listening to a girl who needs him.
You haven't spoken for the last five minutes, but then, neither have I. Are you listening to a different broken couple and wondering how they got that way, too? Or did you just finish your meal and decide you had nothing to say?
I hope no one listens to us.
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My goodness, Robby, this is dark.
ReplyDeleteIt feels honest, and it says important things.
But it breaks my soul a little.
But if someone were to be listening to them, wouldn't they be hearing silence and seeing disgust?
ReplyDeleteWhich is more deadly, the one-sided prattle or the silence? Are both equally bad?
I sure hope I never end up in situations like the ones described above, but if I do, I hope I realized that both the silence and the one-sided conversations are probably not the way things were meant to be. (That is, if I ever end up in a relationship to begin with.)
I think both are deadly, Ashlee. If one side is closed off to the other, or if both sides are closed off, then there is no way to fix the problem(s). I think the one-sided prattle eventually falls into silence.
ReplyDeleteBut not all silence is bad.
Oh, I agree. Not all silence is bad. I was thinking of the particular silence in this piece. Sometimes, nothing to say is an okay thing...and sometimes, it's not.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely true. And when you're reduced to saying nonsense things and nonsense things only . . . that's saying nothing, too, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteYeah. Sometimes, I think that my ability to see and discern hypocrisy is a gift. Other times, it is a terrible burden (Like when I see my own).
ReplyDeleteI feel like the narrator in the piece. I listen to other people and worry that someone is judging me.
It sounds almost final when you say it.
ReplyDelete@ Janelle: Yes, saying nonsense is akin to saying nothing at all. It makes me think of the Cat in The Last Battle, who looked on Tash and ceased to be a Talking Beast.
ReplyDelete@ Robby: Don't take this the wrong way, but probably somebody out there somewhere is judging you. The trick is to not pay attention to the somebodies. What do they know, anyway? They don't know you.
The only Person whose opinion on you matters is God's. This is something I'm still learning, and sometimes it doesn't feel comforting at all (cause who wants to feel judged?) but I'm still learning to trust Him, too, even when it doesn't feel comfortable or on my timeline. (Believe me, there are some things I wish were on my timeline, but they haven't happened yet.)
So, weird as it may sound, there's hope in what seems rather hopeless because a lunch in the cafeteria isn't the end of the world, though some may doubt the quality of the food.
I think judgment is often a very useful thing.
ReplyDeleteTrue, true. I haven't cared about the people who judge me since high school. (Unless I invite them to judge me by being friends with them)
ReplyDeleteI suppose we do allow our friends to judge us. But I guess they usually judge with a more discerning eye; they sometimes understand the past and the context with which we act. As I'm learning, friends are great to have around oneself. I am so glad to have friends that I forget that they may be judging me, and I'm completely okay with that. I'm just happy to have people who accept me and have me hang out with them; it's definitely not something I'm entirely accustomed to.
ReplyDeleteThis would have ended better "I'm glad no one can listen to us." Because he would have been more oblivious and stupid.
ReplyDelete