#i hate media for twisting the consept of you teenage years and what theyre supposed to look like

[poolboyat-thevampiremansion]

on romanticizing the rot

growing up not popular but not unpopular does funny things to your psyche. it makes you do things like falsely romanticize the toxic reality of being fourteen years old out on the town drinking liquor you bought from strangers and hanging out with people four five six years older than you. 

at fourteen i wanted nothing more than to be one of those girls, who went out every weekend and got shit-faced with fair-weather friends who'd leave you out in the cold if they had to. but that can’t be true. they couldn’t’ve been that toxic to each other, right? not like they were to me. it must bond you, in some way. 

when i first got drunk at seventeen i think me and my friends’ brains connected. our neural pathways will always be linked and we are bonded for life. and there’s nothing like the friendliness of drunk girls: the compliments in bar bathrooms, the unbridled and unwavering support they show, the intent interest with which they listen to you, the genuine and bright way they compliment you, say you're so pretty oh my god I love your skirt you’re gorgeous you're literally a goddess he aint shit dont call him you deserve better i want to worship the ground you walk on

i guess the problem comes when drunk girls get sober. the unity of a drunken haze disappears into a cloud of smoke much like the one they were exhaling the previous night. 

theres something deep and powerful in partying. in throwing your life away. in substances and succumbing to them. there must be. that’s why we keep romanticizing them, right? that’s why I wanted nothing more than to have that at fourteen, have that fun, dangerous, thrilling feeling of being alive. of being young and doing things you're not supposed to. I didn’t even think of the immense danger these girls put themselves in. 

seeing my old friend solidified this. revealed the toxicity that they must’ve had to adopt to survive. she told me how she wishes things didn't go the way they did in junior high, told me about the one who was behind most of the drama and everything that contributed to those three years being some of the worst of my life. conversation in smoking areas are special like that. they tear down your walls and get you to reveal yourself. talking over a shared cigarette is a bonding experience and talking with her after years of uncertainty on where we stand all melted away and we talked as if we never stopped. i love her, truly. she lived through the decay, found herself after it. i went through the self discovery process, too. realized, and really, knew all along, that the ideas and experiences i was craving and romanticizing were not worth throwing my childhood away. 

at eighteen i still crave the decay despite of this.

i experience bits of it, now. i feel it when im walking home at 5 am. its nearly palpable when im sharing a smoke on a park bench, tipsy, and the scene is right out of a coming of age movie. at least i hope it is, but i fear it might not be, might be a horror movie or a documentary on my downfall. i still want to live through that chaos. i crave it on rainy evenings biking home from work. i crave it when the musics loud and i pass by a group of teens having fun and somehow feel left out despite being in the same club. when i see people entering bars when im on my way home from having a drink in the park with my friends. i see it in university students getting black out drunk weekly. microdosing alcoholism at the excuse of making the most of your youth. its part of the college experience! its normal! come out with us and drink so much you wont remember half of the night the next day and do it all again a week from now!

the small town syndrome. when theres not much else to do except go to parks and drink with your friends. when your whole country is on the brink of alcoholism and its normal for preteens to start drinking and smoking. its hard not to romanticize it, right? 

i still crave the decay. i still romanticize the rot. i yearn to live through it, vividly, violently.