when you're not pretty enough

a love letter to rejection

its a 57 minute train-ride to the concert, hozier. two people are going, boy and girl. the girl made a promise to herself before stepping on that she would let loose the words that have been scathing her tongue. for the last 55, she has been putting it off. 
on minute 56 she can’t take it anymore.
i think i like you a little, she tells him
she feels him tense up beside her 
end station
the automatic voice calls out 
he stands up
caught in the density of her words and the precarious maneuver of exiting a packed train – pets, bags, legs, and beeping sliding doors. 
(she knows how to pick her moments) 
they shuffle, awkwardly, over the obstacles and out onto the platform
both severely aware that he hasn’t responded 
i don’t know what to say, he finally admits 
i don’t know either, she says, more to herself than to him
there’s a few directionless seconds, then they begin walking toward the exit
extra aware of their shoulders accidentally brushing against each other 
he says something but shes not listening, 
her heels like axes against the marble.  
reaching the end of the platform, stepping onto the escalator, he turns to her:
that must have been hard to carry around
she stands there, leaning against the railing, going up up up –
she watches the situation from outside of herself: 
to a bystander it must have looked like the most normal of situations, conversations. those of little to no importance that takes place on escalators; some small laughs, some casual words, arbitrary sentences. 
a heaviness such as this has no place on something so effortlessly uplifting.
they reach the end, stepping off, out into the cold street.  
he’s trying to make small talk, rambling like he does when he’s nervous.
it’s still some way to go to the tube station. 
she listens half-heartedly. she hears only a high ringing sound; like the soldier hear in movies after a grenade has detonated, a high-pitched sound that muffles all else. 
his mouth is still moving and when they pass a familiar-looking falafel restaurant she says something about having eaten there once, she doesn’t know why. 
all she wants to do is puncture the moment; he wants to smooth it over. 
outside a burger joint they say goodbye, stiffly hugging. they’re supposed to meet up with respective friends, get together later at the concert. 
she takes the escalators down to the tube again, alone. 
her ears still ringing.

---

the night before: 

9 pm but she’s still hungover. a birthday party to attend. she gives about one and a half hours of half-committed effort before she decides to make a quiet exit. she just needs to go back to her friend’s room, grab her coat. 
but stepping inside she finds two people chatting on the bed, sprawled out over jackets, gloves, and discarded pizza boxes. 
they stop talking when she enters.
hey girl, one of them says, after a while.
we’re talking about love.
do you need guidance on the subject? 
and like any relatively drunk or high person would do, she consults the oracle strangers on the bed.

10 minutes later: 
girl, you need to say something
truuuuust me. i didn’t say anything to a guy and now its gone five months and i still haven’t told him. 
she holds her drink up for emphasis: 
listen to me. its better to know sooner rather than later.
but what if i ruin the whole thing? the girl asks 
then that rejection is valid
you can deal with it.
the girl sighs and leans back onto the bed
imagine spending five more months holding all of this in? dont make the same mistake as me
the girl sighs harder

---

later, much later, she’s standing there, swaying at the concert. the guitar slicing into her bones and the base reverberating in her spine. she hears the songs sung about love and can’t help but notice him; a little over there, to the right. the shape of his hair, dark, curly, illuminated by blue. 
cursed to be able to identify that head of hair anywhere. 
she closes her eyes and lets the song overtake her

You called me "angel" for the first time, my heart leapt from me
You smile now, I can see its pieces still stuck in your teeth
And what's left of it, I listen to it tick
Every tedious beat
Going unknown as any angel to me
…
Do you know I could break beneath the weight
Of the goodness, love, I still carry for you?
That I'd walk so far just to take
The injury of finally knowin' you?
…
You know I'm good on my own (Sha-la-la)
Sha-la-la, baby, you know, it's more the being unknown
And there are some people, love, who are better unknown

on the train ride home the 57 minutes pass more slowly than before. 
at least her ears have ceased ringing. 
she tells herself rejection is thrilling, character building. 
she tries to tell herself this. 
a voice resounds in her head: 
non essere una donnetta
it’s maria giudice, hardcore socialist-feminist of early 1900s italy.
it’s her advice to her own daughter, the writer goliarda sapienza:
se c'è qualcosa che non ti va bene, ribellati
[if there’s something that doesn’t sit well with you, rebel. don’t be a small woman¹]
this is what she’s hearing, after the ringing has stopped and the after-shock worn off. 
because she said something. something didn’t sit right and she addressed it, head on. 
a radical sort of vulnerability. 
maybe somebody else would have kept quiet. said nothing, kept the thing inside, endured the pain. but at least she knows that she spoke up when it mattered, that she kept the promise to herself. 
she thinks of saltus fidei. sören kierkegaards leap into faith, or leap of faith. she prefers the former because the word into implies a downfall, a jump into an unknown abyss – like icarus flying high before the fall, catching fire. 
and those seconds when he soared on the clean high air must have been worth it –
that millisecond after your feet left the earth. 

uttering those words was a leap
a jump into
but the thing about the leap is that we never know when, if, or how we land. 
that is not up to us
it’s up to the force we submit ourselves to 
and part of the deal is submitting to the fall even when we don’t know the outcome
a throw of the dice, a russian roulette 
that is the kind of vulnerability she values 
the radical, rebellious kind 

this is what she tells herself
she is no donnetta

---

this letter was written on the 28th of november 2023 – the day i lost access to my substack account. for months ive been away from this space: i fell in love, fell out of love – lost track of myself in between. now that ive landed (on two feet, not catching fire), i felt it was right to come back here. i hope you are still here, still willing to read me; willing to forgive me a little. it is a strange thing, to lose track of yourself as you’re falling so deeply into somone else. im a storm, he once said to me, its fun getting swept away until you land. and yes, it was fun. until the crash when i realized i hadn’t set two feet on the earth for quite some months. but now im back, standing firmly. feeling like the calm clear center of my own storm.

i hope you will still be here for the next letter, a love letter to endings that are also beginnings.

love and all,
e.

1. could also be translated to the more colloquially familiar “don’t be a weasel”