handwritten ➸ s.m

raven

❝so come on girl let me hold your hand
let's go get lost, live without a plan
and i know you've got the world to see
but you know you mean the world to me
and i know right now you got second thoughts
whatever it takes, pay whatever the cost yeah

you know me, not the type of guy
to stick around, to do the time
but you must have me hypnotized
i'm d-d-d-down to be by your side
every night.❞

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december 17, 2011

location: my own house in southwest pickering, ontario

age: still 13

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raven. her name lingered in my mind. truly, it had not been until recently.raven had been a close friend of mine since we were in the wombs. literally. our parents took some sort of practice-parenting classes together, and they hit it right off. raven and i were destined to get along.

once raven and i were 10 or so, we were told stories about us when we were younger. raven and i had forgotten the stories by then, but it didn't prevent our parents from embarassing the shit out of us because of our small, flirtatious acts at a young age. i myself had the memories of a couple of bonding moments with raven.

august 8, 1998: the birds were chirpping, the flowers were flourishing, the sun was heating us up like an egg on a saucer. but, despite the beauty of the summery day, my mom was feeling one of the worst pains she would ever feel, child birth. and so raven and i were born at the local hospital, which was desolate most of the time. raven was born 3 hours before me, as if our parents had planned our birthdates together.

it is said that i was, as expected, crying when i was born. i was placed in a room of which every corner was filled of incubators. raven's incubator was beside my own. and with her prescence there, i stopped crying.

sometime during the year 2001: right after the turn of the century, it seemed like everyone was excited for a fresh start. new century, new me. my parents hosted a celebratoty, cliché barbacue and invited raven and her family over. we were three, so we played with my toy trucks. raven did not really mind that they were seen as boy toys.

and we played for a while. but i released my hand from the truck and, instead, held her hand. i was more intersted in holding her tiny hand in my tiny hand than playing with my trucks. or at least, that's what we were told.

august 19, 2006: that was the first day i thought of a girl as beautiful. we were swinging. we were having fun. she was soaring above me, her dark hair tangling itself with the wind. at this point, her hair was somewhat short, a boy-ish bob. but raven turned around, looking excitedly at me from the top of the sky, as i swung back. and as i saw paige, my raven, swing up high with her boy-ish hair cut and crooked teeth and somewhat small nose, i realized the raven wasn't only raven. raven was the prettiest raven on the face of the earth. scratch that out, raven was beautiful.

2012: last year, raven would come nearly every afternoon to my house, so she would help me with the long division problems we were now doing in math class. it is funny to look back, and think of how i used to look at her brown eyes, focusing solely on the numbers scribbled messily on the piece of paper, and not feel anything at all. nothing. i used to think she was pretty, just like any other boy in our middle school. raven was just raven, one of my few friends. and now raven is my first love.