Boy Crush
For the little girl trapped inside the body of a woman.
Dear little girl,
My therapist told me to write you a letter🎶…
This is a letter to you, to help you express what it is that I think you’re feeling.
Firstly, on behalf of your folks, I want to apologize because what you feel is no absolute fault of your own. You weren’t given enough room to express feelings like these and now, the woman you’ve become blames the girl you were never allowed to be.
How do I explain it? Let me try.
It’s been nine days since you met Bob the Builder or shall we call him Larry Lautner? And we both know he’s our type of guy — Michael Evans Behling woven into the tapestry of a Michael B. Jordan. Lawwwd, have mercy. It’s been 9 days of endless thoughts about him. Thoughts rather left unspoken.
What would he look like if he was shirtless? What would it feel like to be in his arms? What would he smell like if I hugged him? What would he sound like if he said my name? I saw that you fantasized about him in agbádá with you by his side wearing aṣọ òkè. You even also imagined having his babies. You! You never even kissed a guy in your most teenage years! I see how you tear open his shirts in your thoughts, and further fantasize about what kind of tattoo rests on his chests. I laugh at how you worry that you might look weird and let me tell you right now sis, you look extremely weird. You look desperate. Like a hungry hyena and a bitch on high heat, and I do not recognize who that is. I know you did pledge your life a living sacrifice but what is this lustful sacrifice he’s about to make of you? Stop it right now before it’s too late. Remember you are living sacrifice. Stop it.
As I write you, it might even be too late already. But then again, this is supposed to be an apology on behalf of your folks.
I don’t want to begin to sound like they did over 18 years ago, scolding and stripping you of your every panache around the boys you grew up with.
When I thought about writing you this letter, I was going to write you, female to female, sharing my real thoughts on how I felt about your Larry Lautner. And I will share them. Little girl, I am on high heat too. Whatever that might mean to you. I thought about him as much as you thought about him and I wondered if this is what it meant to lose your mind because I was losing mine. I see his silhouette in every other man across the street — beside me on the train, on the line at the coffee shop, and in the hallway at work. I caught a glimpse of him in your thoughts and now, it’s blue-printed on mine.
Right now, I see him cuddling me due to the pain I am experiencing. I see him falling in love as he discovers my quirks. I see him helping me up to the doctor’s office if I suddenly fell into distress and I most certainly see him running after his Cinderella — to return my other glass slipper while my carriage disappears into thin air. Hyperbole’s all mine. I’m basically out of breath and heart beats just thinking about him. This kind of love (or whatever this is) is Bad For Me. You and me both. I know this is supposed to be about you but I really do hate to admit it, I guess I have a boy crush, just like you do too.
I wish I could tell you what to do with a feeling like this. I wish I could tell you that they’d go away sooner than later just like your past crushes. But when you feel, you write, and that’s why I’m writing to you. And maybe when I’m done writing, I’d stop feeling, and you’d stop feeling too. This kind of love is really bad for us both. We are living sacrifice.
Also, I do not want to sit and watch you become a witch — you know, those girls that go out of their way to show interest in or pursue a boy even after he’s mentioned that he’s taken. Those same girls think they are human but between you and I, they are witches and we are definitely not one of them.
You see, we are being consumed (and confused) by the one thing, we were TOLD to stay away from. Upbraided, punished and beaten to stay away from. I still remember how you were beaten for sitting on the same chair with Charles, and I’m so sorry. I hope it doesn’t hurt you anymore. Poor eight-year old you. What did you know? Well, you probably knew that you had a crush on him and he had a crush on you…but you also knew that you were good friends who just wanted to be good friends. You went to school together every morning and spent most of your waking hours with him. Yet, you were only allowed to co-exist in the same world. Not allowed to touch, look at, hear, smell or even think about him. We were so sure that Daddy could hear and read our thoughts. The trauma. And now look at us, we don’t know how to act around these same boys who have now become full-grown men.
For the boys we do not crush on, we see them as humans to be conquered. To be fought, to be taught a lesson, to be squared with, to be pitied or to be blatantly ignored. We do not know what it is to wholly love a man, and when we do try, we fail woefully at it. We remember that Daddy said ‘’Even in Freetown, nothing is free’’. Rightfully so, because men will always ‘request’ something in return.
Now, our feelings will also never be expressed freely. Freedom, Freedom, where ‘re you? We’d also always require more validation, more proof and more affirmation of their love to be able to love freely, and fully.
Little girl, I see you trapped in an adult woman’s body because you can’t bring yourself to grow-up and be free around the kind of people you hoped to marry someday. I see the fire. I see the burning passions inside of you and where do you send the burning passions inside of a girl’s body? Back to hell. I don’t even remember you having the capacity to feel such passions. Tabula rasa you came, blank slate you remained. Now, these men are beginning to make an impression on that slate…
Once again, I apologize on behalf of your folks because you’re stuck figuring out this part of your life alone. I know they did right by you (and me), shielding us both from the fangs of cunning wolves but now that we know how to identify those, how do we learn to also identify the sheep amongst them? How do we learn when to stop fighting and how do we come to love and embrace it all in return? How do we learn to voice what we feel, when we feel it? Heck, how do we learn to even make simple eye contact? How do we learn a more steady and deep way to love while learning to fall truly and utterly in love?
Most importantly, how do I learn to admit that this trapped little girl is in my adult woman body…or simply admit that she might be me?
I’ve got a [boy] crush. Hate to admit it but🎶…
Our heart rush is being slowed back to normal even now as we think of him. We, lol, and I hope it stays this way. I still feel sorry for you my little girl because I do not know how to teach you to [wo]man up. You have a beautiful life ahead of you; crush it or be crushed okay? I do sound like your folks but NEVER DOUBT that I love you as much as they do.
Author’s note: When you feel, write. I like this feeling of my feelings being emptied on e-paper. I also like the taste of my favorite tea in my favorite mug. Tastes like freedom, like praise up on the walls of Jericho. Writing does liberate me. It makes me free.
Ps. Lyrics were adapted from Meghan Trainor’s (feat. Teddy Swim) Bad For Me , Little Big Town’s Girl Crush & Beyonce’s (feat Kendrick Lamar) Freedom. To music that helps verbalize our thoughts and feelings 🥂
