It’s raining outside and I just finished my chores. Seems only fitting to dive back into my unsent teenage love letters.

When we last left Little Pam (LP), she had found a new fixation on which to Velcro her weepy heart. Five days later, she grabbed a red pen and then this happened.

13, Nov., 1990

Why are you doing this to me?

It is all your fault, you know. You have to be so damn beautiful. So damn perfect in any way. You made me fall in love with you. You knew what you were doing from the beginning, didn’t you? Don’t flash those innocent brown eyes at me, I know how well you manipulate.

I wonder if I imagined this boy reading this letter and being flattered by it. Because the weird coy hostility here isn’t working at all. LP’s got no game.

You’ve brainwashed me, that’s it.

You guys, I’m sure as soon as I was finished writing this — and oh, believe me when I say it’s a first draft and there are almost zero corrections. I’ll be sure to let you know whenever I changed my mind mid-genius — I’m sure as soon as I finished the last loopy scribble I flipped back to the first page and read the entire thing out loud. Because even then I knew that if it didn’t sound right, it didn’t read right. So I’m wondering how I performed this one. I bet I was so creepy, reading it with what I assumed was a sexy smirk. You know, I’m not one to advocate teenage sex or any kind of adult behavior among the little, but maybe if by fifteen I had at least an idea of what sex or sexiness was that wasn’t solely acquired by watching Cinemax in the middle of the night I’d have made, like 32% less of a fool of myself. Maybe. Maybe 12%.

But back to the cheeky sex kitten. I believe she was blushingly accusing her beloved of the amorous act of brainwashing.

There’s just no other explanation. It’s brainwashing when that person something monopolizes your every thought, every move, every wish, every desire, every command, every motion, every breath, every tear, every smile, every sight, every sound, every laugh, every second of every minute of every hour–

Yeah. Yeah, I did. Wrote it all out. Because you know what’s hot? Nouns and units of measurement!

–of every day of every week of every month of every year, every dream, every nightmare, every sigh, every movement, every feeling, every word you say or write, and being helpless and completely out-of-control.

That sentence went all crazy at the end, didn’t it? I mean, I know it was crazy throughout. I KNOW that, okay? I’m just saying, I had to go back through the list to figure out how I wrote myself out of that one.

But forgive LP her meandering sentence structure. I mean, can you imagine how hard it must have been? Having her sighs brainwashed?

I know you caused this. Because you are the object of these feelings, thoughts and desires. You are what makes my sun rise and set. You are what brightens my day and makes it darken again. You are what brings me joy and pain. You are what causes confusion and understanding.

YOU CAUSE ME UNDERSTANDING.

This is the part where I say to those of you who have written in to say, “I can’t believe you’re posting these. I have letters just like them, and I’m cringing with how much I identify with what you once went through.” — I’m just going to go ahead and assume at by this point you’d like to retract that statement and just go with, “I can’t believe you’re posting these.”

Because there’s more, and I don’t want you to have to regret anything you might have already said that makes us seem like we have this kind of crazy in common. You’re off the hook.

You are what causes laughter and tears. You are what causes hope and utter helplessness, you are what causes sleepless nights and stressful days. You are what makes my life liveable [sic]. But if you make my life suck so much, then why do I just keep on loving you?

You guys, it’s really hard to be fifteen.

Because you are making me, that’s why. Because you know that you have me at your beck and call and that you’ve got me drooling on your shoes in a disgusting religious sacrifice show of affection.

Okay, that one’s pretty rough to share here in public. Wow.

Wow.

Please don’t make me comment any further on that one. I… you know what’s funny? AND I’M NEVER GOING TO DO THIS, but part of me wants to find this person and apologize but it would end up being on Facebook and then I’d be WRITING HIM A LETTER. AGAIN.

So instead I write this here, so that it’s an unsent letter, so that it’s exactly the same thing, twenty years later, except this time in public.

This means I’m actually regressing, doesn’t it?

You know I’d do anything for you: lie, cheat, steal, kill, die, and that’s just what makes you happy. Go ahead. Fuck with my head.

Oooohhh. Someone got out her Nine Inch Nails album.

Make me miserable. Make me cry. Make me scream in agony and weep in misery. Make me whimper. Make me sigh. I’ll still love you. But you knew that, right?

And again, it just ends there because apparently I threw my journal across the room and then ran into the kitchen to drown my sorrows in a bowl of potato chips and a glass of whole milk. What? My parents both worked, okay? They didn’t have time to teach nutrition! If they were home and available to talk to me and feed me carrots and celery, do you have any idea how hard it would have been for me to become a comedy writer? It would have been nearly impossible. I mean, as a woman.

Unrequited love, one spiral-bound notebook and a refrigerator filled with high-calorie snacks. THIS is how you make a success!

Anyway, I–

Oh.

Oh, it turns out LP wasn’t finished. I guess I ate all that, then ran back into my room, slammed myself down on my daybed and… wrote some more.

13, Nov., 1990

It’s not fair. It’s not fair. I never did anything to you.

I am so sure that’s untrue. I mean, even if we don’t count the apparent stalking, I feel like I must have done something to make this kid be totally weirded out by me.

I never did anything mean or rotten to mess with your mind. I never teased you or hurt you. I’ve never been anything but nice to you. So why do you keep torturing me?

Do I mean by how he’s not my boyfriend? I don’t even know what I’m accusing him of. Oh, wait. The brainwashing. I’m mad at him for making me fall in love with him. By being alive. Well, you can’t argue with that, can you?

Why must I sit in agony day after day after day? If we are such great friends, then why and I’m supposed to be able to tell you anything and everything, and you are supposed to be able to tell me anything and everything, then how come I can’t bring myself to tell you how I feel about you?

Oh, Jesus.

And you aren’t helping matters much keeping to yourself like that. What are you thinking? What’s going on inside your mind? Is it anything like the anguish I feel knowing that your lips are only a foot away from mine, and yet they can’t break each other’s barriers because of a bond called friendship?

I’m guessing he’s thankful every day for that barrier. I bet he’s thankful every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year.

Are you confused too? Do you stay up at nights, wondering if we’ll ever be together? Do you love me? Do you need me? Do you want me? Do you even like me?

Oh, that last one’s so sad, isn’t it? I’m haggling down to like.

If you’ve never done any of these things or asked yourself the same questions, then your hell doesn’t even compare to the hell you are putting me through. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live day to day just to see someone’s face? Or hear someone’s voice? You are all I live for.

“–boy who has the same homeroom as me.”

You are everything. You are my heart and my soul and my mind. I need you. I want you. I love you. If you need me, I’m here. If you want me, I’m here.

“In my room. Because I’m totally grounded for talking on the phone after nine on a school night.”

If you love me, I’m yours. Take all of me. I will enter a state of bliss that might only compare to the esc ecstacy [sic] of heaven.

Probably I don’t have to tell you this, but it’s going to be another few years from this point before I lose my virginity.

But if you don’t want me, just say so. Please, my heart can’t take much more. If you want me to go, I’ll gather my sorrows and exit your life forever, although I don’t know how I’ll survive without you.

I like how I won’t even finish the sentence that gives him the option to tell me to go without the threat of my immediate death on his hands.

I won’t survive. Survival is painful without love.

Indeed, LP. Indeed.

Survival is painful with love, if the object of your desire is keeping his feelings a secret. Won’t you tell me? Share with me your soul.

If someone’s keeping a list somewhere, this sentence is my new number one for Most Embarrassing. Also, can I get a Glarkware of “Share with me your soul,” please?

Please. I want to hear you, feel your words dancing in my mind and tickling my ears. Oh, heavenly bliss–

Oh, shit.

— I need to feel your body twined with mine. I want to stare into your eyes and be swept into another dimension.

Oh God, I think I’m in love. Now I’m scared.

And then it just ends here like I threw my journal across the room, ripped off all of my clothes and ran around my backyard in a frenzy. Good God, that thing was filled with so many hormones I think I just caught a zit. What a horrible day I had on November 13, 1990. Why won’t that boy sweep me into another dimension with his chocolate brown eyes and tell me if he even likes me? Why is he torturing me so, just going to class and then going home and then like, going to class again? Doesn’t he understand my body needs twining?

Jesus, you know, I had friends back then. Did I not tell any of them any of this? I don’t think I did. Thank goodness I eventually got into theatre, so that I didn’t have so much time to myself locked in my room not doing a very good job of babysitting my little sister.

Oh, man. You know how people sometimes say they’d love to go back to high school and do it all over again? Are they crazy? This is what it felt like! Every day! And every day felt like a million days all squished into one sad horrible neverending day.

Or maybe that was me. I don’t know. But you what doesn’t make it better? A bowl of Charles Chips and a glass of whole milk. But I tried. Every day. Until I was ginormous.

But that’s another letter.

Until next time: GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!!