I'm Terrified One Day I'll Look Around And Realize For All My Platonic Love, It Isn't Enough. For All

I'm a long way from the girl who sat under the mango tree, in the back of the school and listen to cars passing by on the highway after school. She would close her eyes and pretend the sound of the cars on the road were the sound of waves crashing on the shoreline. She had the wildest and most vivid imagination. I look at her now in photos and memories, and I realize, I'm not that kid anymore, I'm not. The magic of the world isn't held in my eyes anymore.

—Camille Lee, 4:30 p.m.

Loneliness is a wounded beast, roaring and clawing at the walls of my heart, wailing for reprieve, relief for his suffering. A balm, a salve for injuries he can't see, with no end in sight, maybe a mercy kill is instead what he should seek. He couldn't talk and even if he tried, I doubt you'd understand his cries, "Come get me out, these four walls are so empty, somebody please come find me."

— Camille Lee, Loneliness is a wounded beast

When you know yourself you know life ⋆⋅♡⋅⋆

Love is extensively and excessively patient with me, but that's how I know love will never run out of it with me. Love messages everyday at lunch “did you eat?” because love knows I’ll forget when I’m busy. Love holds my hand when the doctor administers the needle and love carries my things after the appointment because they’re a ‘gentlemen’. Love always insists they carry the bags with me when it gets heavy. Love takes great care to place their hand on my left shoulder, to cradle me closer, the pain in my right arm subsides a little quicker. Love held me in a doctor's office and they dried my tears, after I cried over little teeny tiny, baby needles.

— Camille Lee, love is the one who holds my hand

I try not to fall in love. I really do, because I know that I'll think about them, those things that will make it hard to forget. The curve of his back, the outline of his hips, the way his necklace falls at the base of his neck, the way its only something I can admire when his back is turned, because he likes to tuck his necklaces inside his T-shirt, the matching bracelet hangs off his wrist and sparkles in the light the way his eyes do when morning comes the next day. I have his sleepy smile when I'm the first thing he sees as he opens his eyes, memorized, and his low playful drawl to"take a picture, it'll last longer," before he scoops me up in his arms with the strength of someone who had definitely-been-awake-for-a-while and I'll remember it all. These are the things, the things I'll think of when you're gone, so I try my best not to fall in love.

—Camille Lee, I'll remember everything

He was the first guy, I tried the "talking stage" with. I told him slow, glacially slow, like a candle burning into the late hours of the night, but he didn't hear over his own wants, his own needs. It was part of the reason it was the end of our season, on his way out the door he broke my heart all over and I knew I dodged a bullet when his ego started talking. Suddenly, oh so suddenly, I wasn't worthy of someone like him. Suddenly my beauty was too little and there was something wrong with me, so much for "you're my ideal girl" because now apparently I "wasn't even that pretty" and my version of normal was a problem. The way I was, was a problem. You said if I'm not happy with you, I'll never find a boyfriend. At the mere age of twenty with so much life left to live ahead of me, did you really think that's what I'd believe? The audacity— to try to convince me I wasn't worth loving, if I didn't want to be with you. My only regret is I didn't laugh in your face, so much for the "talking stage."

—Camille Lee, you'll never find a boyfriend