Go Analog, Baby

Your name is not, nor will it ever be, Butternut.

Butternut is the name of the suburban cul-de-sac down the street and the hamster of some spoiled little six-year-old who hosts tea parties sans any actual tea. Butternut is a doughnut flavour. It is not your name. The people at school obviously don't know this, your "friends" might not know this, fucking Tom definitely doesn't know this, but it's true. And every substitute teacher and I, we know this. We see you for who you actually are, and it's not Butternut.

You’re not really fooling anyone.

You could go with liar, sure, but if a hint of truth ever left those cheap drugstore lipstick lips of yours, that'd make the entire thing obsolete. On the brightside, it's clear honesty isn't anywhere near your future.

Talk dirty to me about how you were born in the wrong generation. Yeah baby, just like that, mention Woodstock for the millionth fucking time.

You can lie as much as you want, you can pretend all you like, but it's not going to be your fucking name. It's not even a cool name, either. I lied. It actually sounds like a shitty popcorn flavour.

And God knows that the only reason you're not spewing out shit like Starflower is because the girl with the blue hair and the black lips pierced three times, she's already claimed that name. God knows the only reason Moonbeam isn't rolling off your tongue is because the blonde girl with the crazy eyes and tie-dyed crop tops, she's already entertaining that lie. Well, God and I. We seem to be the only people that have any goddamn clue.

This makes little difference now though. You are not Butternut and you are not your name, you are only that fucking hipster whore, for now and forever. It’s not on your birth certificate but let's be real, it's the only thing that truly fits.

But when I met you, you and your high-waisted shorts and your bright red lipstick, you smiled at me. You and your chipped black nails and your dark circle shades, you introduced yourself to me and said, "Bonjour, I'm Butternut."

You can't even speak fucking French. I know this. You know this.

And at that time, I was blinking once, twice, three times all in succession, dizzy with bewilderment and my sweaty palms were gripping too tightly to the neck of my middle school guitar. Because I knew who you were and I knew who your friends were and me, with my stained red shirt and my beat up converse, why were you talking to me?

You skipped third period to smoke cigarillos behind the school and always smelled like vanilla.

Why were you talking to me?

Everyone else was crowding around Scott because Scott could sing and play harmonica and me, I only knew a few chords on the guitar. Scott had that haircut that was popular in Europe and I liked to watch compilations of people getting hurt on the internet for hours on end. Everyone loved Scott but you didn’t even bat an eyelash at him.

Sometimes I have to wonder if it was because he was what everyone else loved, the Paul McCartney, and so everything you had to hate or because you knew he’d see right through you and your fake dollar store pearls.

But I only smiled at you. I smiled and you tilted your head like always. You with that small, barely noticeably teasing smirk carved on your lips, and there was no hope left for me.

I guess we were sort of perfect for each other, I the pathetic Ringo desperately waiting for someone to notice me and you the try-hard compulsive liar finding your own little fix-up project to find some self worth in yourself. We’d succumb to the boredom of adolescence and within the sea of apathy found each other; our pathetic existences collided into the perfect disaster.

But that was then, only a couple of months but feeling like a lifetime ago, when I thought you were cool and pretty and intelligent and not just as lost as I was.

That was before I knew thrift stores and superiority complexes and indie bands, before I knew fucking Tom and before I knew you. You shook my hand and I didn’t even have a clue what I was getting myself into.

Now all I've got are too many of those itchy knit sweaters that smell like piss and enough regret to drown all those cool indie nobodies you'd sell your soul to.

And I bought a polo today just because I knew you’d hate it, you fucking hipster whore.