- Uncategorized
- 30 Apr 18
At 22 years of age, and just finishing up a degree in French & Spanish (hopefully), Mark – from Cabra in Dublin – confesses that he loves dancing as a way to ease existential dread (literally). While he hasn't had much writing experience as yet, he is a prolific diary keeper and dabbles in poetry here and there. He is a lover of all literature, from Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl to Jack Kerouac and Albert Camus.
And now for Mark’s WRITE HERE, WRITE NOW entry ...
I click send and lock my phone. Immediately, I open it back up again.
“Last online 25 minutes ago”.
Fuck.
I lock it and put it face down on the bed. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. Why did I send that? I should have just waited. I should have just waited until the next time I saw her. I’m a fucking idiot. I unlock it again.
“I really like you and I just want you to know…”
I throw it to the other side of the bed. My insides from my throat down to my stomach are going absolutely haywire and all I’m able to manage are these tiny little breaths, as if somebody is squeezing the bottom half of my lungs like the udders of a cow. This is worse than pain. It’s like that feeling of sheer panic you get when somebody is tickling you – you aren’t in pain but inside you’re in a state of pure fucking pandemonium. It’s absolutely horrible.
My phone plucks me from the abysmal darkness of my room as I unlock it again.
“Seen”.
Fuck me sideways.
Although I lie still in my bed my whole body feels like a firework shooting up into the sky about to blow up into a thousand smithereens. I stare at the screen, my heart pounding like a pack of greyhounds sprinting after a hare. I hate this bullshit. This isn’t like real life. There’s none of this fucking waiting. In real life you say something and it lives on only in memory – with this, your feelings are now this separate entity, this collection of words you’ve put together on screen that can be analysed and critiqued like a fucking Sherlock Holmes novel.
And then I see those three little dots.
Holy fuck. She’s writing something. Jesus Christ. What will she say? I stare at those stupid little smiley faces that I put at the end of my message to try and come across a little less serious and have a conversation with her in my head. I imagine myself looking her in the eyes and saying exactly how I feel; her laughing at me and calling me a big eejit; we kiss.
For a moment this thought fills my heart with a warm, fuzzy feeling of elation until then, like Pavlov’s dog, I hear that fucking message tone and of jolt of anxiety shoots through me.
“I love you so much as a friend but…”
Shit.
The commotion from before is extinguished as a mist of sadness and hurt diffuses through me. With each word I read a little pinprick of disappointment pierces my heart as a lump forms in the back of my throat and I feel the tears building up in the corners of my eyes; each laboured breath I take I attempt to fight the heartbreak that is slowly constricting me.
I lock my phone and succumb to the darkness.
Readers’ Choice Award
There will be a special award for the Most Popular Shortlisted Entry – that is, the one that is most read by members of the public, and most shared on social media. To share, use the social media buttons at the top of the page.
To read more Write Here, Write Now entries, click here
_image2_