Clarity

“Here we go.” I let out a subtle sigh. As I look at the text that he just sent me I realize how inevitable one more fight is if I choose to reply. We miscommunicate often these days so I decide to wait for him here to speak in person. At our spot. Cheesy yes, but this has been our common ground since we were eight when our biggest problem with each other was trading fake Pokémon cards. I place my phone beside me on the green bench and I can’t help but realize how different this time is. He and I were so happy once. Recently I read a book called “This is How You Lose Her” where in the epigraph; Junot Diaz includes a quote by Sandra Cisneros that states

“Okay, we didn’t work, and all

memories to tell you the truth aren’t good.

But sometimes there were good times.

Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep

beside me and never dreamed afraid.

There should be stars for great wars

like ours.”

I find those words imprinted in my mind when I consider where we’ve been and how we’ve reached this limbo we find ourselves in now.

But this time I don’t feel that pressure in my gut, the one that radiates up into your throat and back down; putting so much force on your stomach your feel the need to poop. The one you feel when something overwhelming or disastrous happens. The one every melodramatic teenage girl feels every two point five seconds. I feel an eerie sense of peace. I don’t feel the need to listen to “the playlist”, the one with fifty-three songs I collected over the years in memory of him. With the lyrics that allow my mind to be free and speak my thoughts for me. I tune out for a second then I’m brought back to my surroundings by the Killers “All These Things That I’ve Done”. Fuck I remember how much you loved that song- stupid shuffle. The blaring fades as I take off the beats you brought me. The ones I was originally too ashamed to wear outside because they looked enormous on my already extra-large head.

I look around as the breeze intensifies. The pond in front of me has a bright green layer of pollen on top of it. The leaves on the trees are shades of greens, reds and yellows foretelling the change of seasons is about to commence. There’s an overcast and I begin to pray the rain is delayed an hour or so. The weather is so fitting for today.

I see him enter the 106th street entrance of Central Park. When I’m finally able to focus on him I take a good look at his face. He’s lost the innocence that once filled his cheeks. I’m taken back to the first day we decided to try the whole boyfriend and girlfriend thing, a union set up by my half-sisters who at the time were convinced we were made for each other. I recall him wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves fitted with a matching cobalt t-shirt three times his size. He’s wearing khakis now, with a white button downed shirt and dress shoes and I can’t help but appreciate that age is becoming of him. His face suddenly changes when his eyes meet mine and scenes from our adolescents leave me. He sits beside me and stares at the pond I observed moments before he came. His small talk is stiff and I quickly zone out to the summer we spent together. After spending the whole night on the phone he’d make the three block trip to my apartment from his grandmothers and we’d cook breakfast. At fourteen we had planned out our whole lives. Where we would buy our first home and what we would name our children. Until today it seemed like we had shared a lifetime together knowing each other better than we’d ever admit.

He grabs my hand but my reflex breaks his grasp on me. I can’t let him find any opening to the comfort and security the years of familiarity have allowed us to share. He mentions how long I’ve been with my boyfriend and I take it as a gesture of reconciliation to his adversary. My silence offers my position in return. It is then that he discloses how he is ready to propose to his girlfriend. I smile sweetly as I absorb all I have ever admired about him. The sadness of faded memories between him and I diminish and somehow or another I escape the obscurity of all that is him. The fog of his affection and warmth leaves my mind I’m left with so much clarity despite feeling like I’ve shared a lifetime with him.

194 thoughts on “Clarity

  1. Suresh Ramdhanie

    Your piece made me emotional. You picked writing about an ex as a topic and it was pretty wise; we all have ex’s and can immediately make our own connections to the narrative in the piece and empathize with the individuals in it as we read their romantic lives play out while we consciously remember our own. I couldn’t help but remember having awkward/foggy discussions with my ex after we broke up- your piece is so emotive things feelings that I’m eager to finish this feedback so that I won’t have to think about my ex anymore (I want to think about Halloween instead- monsters are cool).

    I like how descriptive you are. As someone who had taken dates to the pond at 106th St in Central Park, I actually pictured that same pond before you confirmed that it was in the paragraph that follows. Its awesome that you can have a reader accurately guess a location before confirm its name- that’s some good writin’

    This was a really nice piece. I would use the term defecate instead of “to poop” since it just sounds better when you read it. I was confused by a few things:
    1) Why you guys were meeting in the first place?
    2) What was in the text he sent you?
    3) The line “reconciliation with his adversary” implies that your ex and your current had some type of friendly relationship before, hence them reconciling their friendship- if they weren’t friends, than this is confusing. You can write “submission to his adversary” or “capitulation to his adversary.”

    K, toddles

    Reply
  2. Sergio Narine

    This piece was very descriptive and well organized with the exposition introducing the theme of “Man Vs. Nature.” I found that the opening of the piece captured the readers attention and the Junot Diaz reference established the writer’s credibility because he is a well-known writer, which in turn allows the reader to rust the writer. The voice of the narrator is told in first person POV and tries to evoke many emotions that forces the reader to vicariously experience what main character felt throughout the piece.

    I would suggest that the narrator “kill some of their darlings;” for example the paragraph, “I look around as the breeze intensifies…” is not needed because it doesn’t seem realistic to the events that are happening in the piece. It is a great paragraph, but I think it should be used for a different piece. I want to see some more physical descriptions aside from his attire that shows that the male character is physically mature, which would give the reader a more accurate sense of his age. Also, I was confused why the two character’s broke up in the first place.

    Reply
  3. Orhan Gokkaya

    Your tone changes in your piece, I liked that you had a humorous tone for example the line, “putting so much force on your stomach your feel the need to poop” which is unique for this type of piece. I like how you implemented an outside source. Your topic is different; normally people who were once in a relationship can never be friends because one party always has feelings for the other. You can explain how a person acts while in a relationship then what happens after, when the relationship ends, the atmosphere that the break up creates. Staying friends after a break up is very hard, only mature people can do it. Explain the history of the relationship; give the reader more information about the relationship. You can also reach a wider audience by adding on how to handle your ex having another partner.

    Reply
  4. David Castro

    whoa this was great. at first i kinda rolled my eyes and thought ” not a piece about a relationship” but you did a great job of keeping a reader entertained, in a topic many of us can relate too.

    i would keep the quote out. it does nothing to the piece but narrow it to interpretations.
    you dont really speak about the fights either way other than that great piece.

    Reply
  5. Vanessa

    I think this sentence was confusing because the original point was too vague: “He mentions how long I’ve been with my boyfriend and I take it as a gesture of reconciliation to his adversary.” You could be more specific with the words he used, because for the reader, the meaning could go either way. Instead, if you establish the long length of time the narrator had been with her boyfriend for, the reader can understand this line better. I am also not sure about the word choice regarding “reconciliation.”

    I liked this piece, though. It was just a very CLARIFYING moment (haha). Yeah, what I’m trying to say is I felt that you had been very honest with the narrator’s thoughts, like I understood all the feelings the narrator had in this piece–except the end did leave a little to be desired, like how exactly the narrator came to have such clarity and the “eerie sense of peace” about him and the situation? Or how she takes off the headphones when she comes across the song the other character loved–is this showing that she held something against him, and why is that?

    And sorry, Suresh, but I’m not sure “defecate” would fit the voice of the author. Maybe “the need to go” but this is arguably vague. That line about feeling the need to poop definitely sticks out, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing for disrupting the melancholy seriousness of the piece, since the narrator definitely doesn’t feel the same young-love-everything-is-perfect-type feeling about the other character anymore.

    Reply
  6. Kerel Cain

    the descriptions you make paint scene well and give the reader a since, along with your actually words, that these are fond memories of a relationship that has faded, but the memory of the the feelings hasn’t. this piece reads as reflective regret for the times that you shared and the thoughts you had about each other which never manifest itself to the present. i am reminded of lost of innocents in this piece because the age this relationship started in and the maturity that you have gained since.

    the last paragraph is filled with a lot of subtext about thinking about reconnecting but undercut by current circumstance. it written as if he wanted to initiate it but was detoured by your current relationship. i think their could be a little more clarity about the current circumstances.

    Reply
  7. Deviniti Donnabella

    I really enjoyed the voice of the narrator throughout this piece. It is as if readers get a glimpse of the narrator’s mind and thoughts surrounding this significant individual in her life. I also love how the writer writes in a kind of abstract matter to get her emotions across and also the descriptive scenes like the one where “the leaves on the trees are all different shades of greens, reds, and yellows. I would like to see more of the little things you enjoy about this person. For example in the quote it mentioned that she loved his crooked sleep. Giving readers more little things to look at will definitely strengthen your piece. Great job!

    Reply
  8. Gabriela

    I really enjoyed this piece. It’s a narrative about a situation in life that many have seen themselves in before. From the very beginning, you set a scene that makes the read feel the emotions described. You do an excellent job at providing analogies and descriptions that are not only helpful in providing imagery but are also quite funny like when you were detailing the feelings running through you moments before meeting with you boyfriend. I was a little disappointed in the ending. It didn’t give me the sense of closure that I was hopeing for. It was almost like a cliffhanger, and perhaps that was your intention, but as the reader I was left hanging. Try and take a little more time detailing the long awaited encounter that you have with you boyfriend and show as much as you can.

    Reply
  9. Joan Infante

    The first thing that i thought about when reading the title was the song “clarity” by Zedd. As i continued reading, the chorus in the song had a lot of similarities to the essay. ‘If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy? If our love is insanity, why are you my clarity?’

    I felt that the quote by Junot Diaz was very strong and definitely had a strong application to the story. However, i definitely could have used a little more insight that the author and her ex-boyfriend have moved on to other relationships. At the part where the author did not want to touch the hand of the ex boyfriend and it said something along the lines of “i cant let him find an opening to my comfort…”, i felt a little lost and i had to reread the final paragraph in order to get it straight.

    Reply
  10. Ruket Negasi

    I thought this piece was pretty good. I enjoyed your choice of words when describing the scene in central partk, at one point I felt like I was in the story. Although this piece was good I wished you could have added some more information to it in order to create more clarity (as ironic as that may sound). Perhaps add a paragrapgh about “him” so we as the readers could fully grasp and maybe even relate on some level the emotions the narrator was undergoing when meeting “him”.

    Reply
  11. Nadya Antoine

    I really enjoyed this piece.

    Despite the comments made in class, I praise the amguity in this piece. I dont’t believe that I needed times, events or names to palce this piece. The scene was presented greatly and I had all the information I needed. The title served as a an excellent theme throughout the piece and was only mentioned once, in the end.

    The piece wasn’t emotional but informational in that it is what almost most human beings go through. My only confusion was in the last paragraph, “He mentions how long I’ve been with my boyfriend and I take it as a gesture of reconciliation to his adversary.” I was a little confused on if the tension was brewing from his character or yours. Thus, I believe maybe a line somewhere in the piece about how ties were broken would suffice.

    Otherwise, great piece.

    Reply
  12. Li Huang

    This piece was funny and confusing. Planning your whole life out at the age of 14? That certainly made me chuckle. The author’s purpose in the writing the story was to disperse her story of a young love and share its sorrows. The author intends the audience to sympathize with her.

    Reply
  13. Alicia Camano

    “I recall him wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves fitted with a matching cobalt t-shirt three times his size. He’s wearing khakis now, with a white button downed shirt and dress shoes and I can’t help but appreciate that age is becoming of him.” This description of what he was wearing is very effective. This demonstrates that the voice of the character values momentum. The importance of the boy’s outfit signifies that the character valued the person.
    “The fog of his affection and warmth leaves my mind I’m left with so much clarity despite feeling like I’ve shared a lifetime with him.” I enjoyed this quote because it summed up the characters feelings towards the boy. I also enjoyed the suspense of the piece. I was not sure what to expect. I was surprised of the ending. I would like to imagine your reaction. It will be good if you add a little about the characters reaction. Other than that Good job, keep up the good work.

    Reply
  14. Amilka Lopez

    I really like that you chose to speak about relationships. I really enjoyed reading this piece. I like the innocence behind this piece, the fact that you are just a teenager and you believe that you have your whole life planned out when in fact you do not. I believe you did an excellent job with your use of imagery.
    “look around as the breeze intensifies. The pond in front of me has a bright green layer of pollen on top of it. The leaves on the trees are shades of greens, reds and yellows foretelling the change of seasons is about to commence. There’s an overcast and I begin to pray the rain is delayed an hour or so. The weather is so fitting for today.”

    Reply
  15. Josie

    The paper does not make it clear that they are no longer a couple until the end. I do not think that the writer should include the quote. I am not clear on why they are no longer together. I would like to know more about how he feels about her. I would like to know more about how she feels about him.

    Reply
  16. Daniel Song

    I like each paragraph. “At fourteen we planned out our whole lives.” Lines like that get to me, and I think each paragraph has a potent line like that. In the last paragraph, he grabs your arm but you pull away from it. Because of the context of the story, it has more meaning than just you pulling away from him. You set this up pretty well, and I’m not really sure what kind of advice to give you.

    I especially like Sandra’s quote in your story. It’s perfect for relationships. Good job.

    Reply
  17. Julianne Reynoso

    This was an interesting story on young love. I think its particularly sad when the love is one sided, especially when there’s so much history involved. A line that gives a good reflection of the main character’s state is “He grabs my hand but my reflex breaks his grasp on me. I can’t let him find any opening to the comfort and security the years of familiarity have allowed us to share.” It’s the perfect rejection line because both characters seem to be denying themselves. It’s also sad because considering the next line, it may have been the moment where the guy confessed to his feelings of her. While I want to know if the couple ever meets again, I think the ending gave a good sense of closure.

    Reply
  18. Krystal Temple

    The imagery you used in this piece was phenomenal. It painted a beautiful picture of a girl meeting her ex boyfriend for some “clarity”. However, I wanted more backstory. I wanted to know WHY you were meeting him at the park. Were you guys still involved? What was going on between the two of you at this point of your relationship? Why did you guys decide you needed to still meet at your “spot”? I also wanted a clearer sense of how you felt during this “clarifying moment” at the end. I wanted to see your emotional growth from beginning to end – just as you described his emotional growth. I also loved the quote you used ,because it definitely grasped my attention from the beginning of the piece. Overall, this was a lovely piece!

    Reply
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