Smart Girl

02.11.17

or when the colors are drained and the photograph becomes saturated.

an instagram account seemed to be the answer to my issue of connecting with others through pictures, rather than stories. i've needed a social fill-in for a long time; humans are a social species, and without the social, i'm simply a species. hence my need for action.

the notifications filled up with the names of people i used to know, people i had started to forget about. names that ring dull bells like those in notre dame. it was surreal, knowing that people hadn't forgotten me.

they had a tendency to do that when i was around.

seeing all of these familiar names made me wonder. and wonder.

i hunted through the nonprivated accounts of the people he knew. i knew even as i did it that it was stupid, useless.

but there it was. i had climbed myself to the top of a spire, where there was no place to stand, to find balance, to hold on.

he was smiling in the picture, with a girl i did not know, though it was obvious the image was taken at a swim meet. the screen was dominated in white, because of the private status of his account.

that was when my saturation started once again.

i felt as if i had lost that right to press the follow button, not after what happened in november. i didn't know whether or not to call him a friend, or to talk to him as such. he had become foreign, even when two years of my life were spent so close to the boy with a mind as big as his veiled heart.

he said his favorite color was green. i remembered it so well.

what i didn't remember, however, was a reason for my stomach to be churning with anxiety at the very thought of the conflict of my mind.

i wanted to cry, for this was what caused lost minds: confliction.