We’re in a young-love recession.
Gen Zers are slow to trust and averse to risk,
we have, it seems, a particular social nervousness
about interpersonal exchanges and the symbiosis of love.

So we resort to situationships (undefined relationships),
a stratagem for closeness, with zero commitment.

You can flirt; you can kiss; you can dance.
You can have a crush so big it blots out the stars
You can have transformative romantic encounters
you can care deeply and get hurt badly
you can, in fact, be absolutely wrecked by love
All without ever being in a relationship.

Thank God we’re only young once.
.
.
Songs for this:
Die With A Smile by Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars
Busy Woman by Sabrina Carpenter

I’m finally going to get on that platform
on the 18th of next month,
for a first-time, one-time performance.
The once, seemingly impossible will come fully true,
which seems like a lot narratively.

It’ll be like leaving home—but we’re crashing out.
Moving on to other plot points, big topics and intense missions.
We’re all caustically optimistic.

Although there’s a cellular-level pull to move on
we can’t help but feel a hesitancy to jump into our multifarious futures.
We’ve never been improvident.

In my personal pool of experience, when I feel alone,
friendless and unseen, this unintelligible fear noise arises
and I'm tempted to tap out. But I never have.
.
.
Songs for this:
walk but in a garden by LLusion
What Dreams Are Made Of by Evann McIntosh
I Like You (A Happier Song) [feat. Doja Cat] by Post Malone

"A girl and boy went for a walk. The walk turned into a race. The girl won, but it's okay—the boy took second place."

Going through my old notebook.
Page by page,
Line by line,
I found phrases I wrote for you —
Raw but true.
Some lines, which even today,
Brought me back to my rue.

My book was pointing towards
An unsung outcry,
Asking me questions — unsolved,
Poking me to answer: “The why?
Hey! Give it a try!”

I found some paragraphs — meaningless.
They have just lost their tenderness.
Stories of my loved adversaries,
Poems about my daunting memories.

They say my book is petrifying,
For it has some pages with moments —
Electrifying.
It still has some pages empty,
Yellow and old,
Stating and defining my dreams —
The stories that remained untold.

Listening to him say “not her”
tickled something in my brain
to be loved is to be seen
but not in the normal sense
nah
in the perfect quirky out of breath hair in your face but still put together? Kinda quirky
as I savour another perfect bite
of Brie/rosemary/prosciutto
I’m left to wonder

why the hell not her

***** and broken
dreams fall like
slanted rain in
a hurricane.
Mud-faced youth
plummet to the
ground.