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ROMANCE IS DEAD AND REALITY TV KILLED IT

by Ashley Shah

avant-garde to the fucking max and i fall in like-like w/
ideals of who i want a person to be based on calculated combinations of their looks,
grades, socio-economic class, political views and mental disorders.

this is NOT good. i read the shmoop of madame bovary for english
and falling in love w/ fantasies
leads to massive debt and suicide by arsenate.

that is probably the antithesis of what i want.

that is maybe closer to what my current life is hurtled towards avoiding.

from past experience, i know rapid idealization leads to rapider devaluation
which leads to crying in the bathroom at two in the morning
thinking TO BE or NOT TO BE and anyway, HOW?
when i never wanted someone to fill the emptiness anyway, i just wanted
a CUTE HIGH SCHOOL RELATIONSHIP
that involved more than brushing arms in art class or playing ‘would you rather’
after french homework.

i am sighing. i am so young. i am so fucked.
i play pretentious therapist to anyone who spares a second glance,
feeling i have EVERY RIGHT because according to my therapist and Susan
from the national suicide hotline, i am EXTRAORDINARILY intelligent and self-aware.

self-awareness is meaningless when you change your aesthetic every two days
to impress every boy with a functional mouth, desperately hoping
this will finally be enough.

intelligence is malignant when you’ve never had a real crush
and love, in its entanglement with crushing REALITY,
is unimaginable.

i keep saying i am so over unrequited crushes when what i mean to think is
i am so over nonexistent boys and unrealistic expectations.

what i mean to do is undecided,
although i’m leaning towards a mixture of celibacy and online dating.

the thing about me is, i never understood why Gatsby went for Daisy
and let his count of enchanted objects diminish by one.
i would have taken romanticized fantasies and desperate longing
over an unhappy life and the knowledge that this was what i wanted.

if anyone tells you seeking the truth is noble,
tell them to shut the fuck up.

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