Romir Swar Week 16: Love Letter to Lang
Dear AP Lang,
I love you.
You’ve walked into my life, grasping me by the neck, and asked me to dance.
At first, I did not understand you. I could not cadence myself to your flirtatious pulse. It was too fast. You were too fast. The song struck its final beat before I even realized we were dancing.
The music stopped.
But you remained.
You were patient with me. From the pitch black mornings to the pitch black nights, you were with me, waiting by my side while I sat in disbelief, or rather, in admiration of your beautiful complexion.
Like a thought on the finger tips of one’s cognition—ready to be processed, but ahh nevermind—you’ve pulled me in. Here—somewhere between the lines of confusion and clarity—I am a blank page, unsure where to begin.
But struggle with you is not truly struggle; it’s tension, the kind of tension that trembles yet does not snap, the kind that cultivates deeply rooted growth.
I began to sense the layers of your love, comprehending the depth behind all that you put forward. The soreness—both of muscle and of mind—still lingers, each annotation inking my hand long after the golden light, green glow, and ocean-blue tide ran barren.
Interpreting with intention rather than impulse, I learned to sit with you—patiently in fixation of the unraveling nature of your lessons. You taught me to move carefully, to move creatively, but most importantly, to move with purpose.
Maybe—no, yes, you were, indeed, too much, sometimes.
But what is love if not difficult, unfiltered, and overbearing.
You’ve ignited a spark that breathed into an inextinguishable blaze. You’ve become my oxygen.
For a little bit longer, you will invite me to dance while grasping my neck, but soon you will walk out of my life.
I guess the music never stopped. I simply learned to hear it internally.
Always echoing the rhythm of your love,
Romir
Romir, it’s great that you came full circle and wrote a poem for your very last blog. It’s sort of bittersweet (though, more on the sweet side) that you wrote a love letter to ice cream, then APENG. Honestly, with the ice cream one, I thought you were being a little too erotic and it made me laugh. I see the style surface here again, and I did chuckle—but it carries a different feeling this time. Maybe because I’m also, so closely bonded with this course, that I relate and understand this depth of intimacy. Or maybe because I wasn’t into ice cream the same way you were. Either way, it seems like a lot of growth has occurred over such a hectic year…
ReplyDeleteThis was absolutely beautifully written. I know lots of people are glad to be done with this class, ready to cut it out of their lives forever. But it seems like you’ve taken a different mind to it, and I really resonate with this. It didn’t feel like the kind of struggle you’d have with an impossible task. APENG was more like stretching the bands in your brain enough to exercise a whole new muscle, something we desperately needed. Yeah, I did have some crazy nights that were the result of poor decisions, but that was on me. Whenever APENG “failed” me, it was because I had gotten its dance wrong in that moment. And “surviving” lang was learning to last with its love.
Lately, I’ve been moving with the idea that love is more like everlasting patience. Love means to be able to work out the complications and fights, and stand next to one another, because you want this. Maybe the passion will fade, but you still stick with them and strive to stay. After reading your poem, I realize that I too, love this class.
and also seriously thanks for my awesome nickname from Day 1!!! Footballer.
ReplyDeleteHi Romir! I have to admit when I saw the title of your blog (the last one, isn’t that insane), I did roll my eyes. For context, I was in the midst of writing my true story and so Lang was not my favorite subject at that moment. I thought this blog was fitting for you though since you’ve talked to me on numerous occasions where you’ve just expressed how excited you were for class that day or for an upcoming assignment. At times, I did think “There’s no way Romir is serious. He has to be joking.” However, especially this week I’ve come to the realization that this class has been fun and it allowed me to grow in numerous ways.
ReplyDeleteI love the style you wrote your blog in. I found it amusing that it was written as a genuine love letter—although, I guess I should have assumed that from the title. The truth in the statement that your love for APENG is “difficult, unfiltered, and overbearing” cannot be understated. APENG has seen the absolute worst of me. This class has made me have one or two existential crises, but I think they were necessary. In the end, I do believe I have gained so much from this class and it made me see writing and reading as a beautiful tool rather than a torture device schools thought would be fun. Just as you said, I’ve learned to “internally” value what this class has taught me and I am excited to see how I’ll apply it in the future.
Also, was the “green glow” a reference to The Great Gatsby in any way. That would be pretty masterful since Gatsby also had a complicated love with Daisy.
Romir, I hope you continue your love for English outside of school somehow. Perhaps you can create an actual blog. If you do, make sure you send it to me, okay?
Although my blog this week may suggest otherwise, a lot of what you expressed in your love letter to AP Lang resonates with me, probably more strongly than I care to admit. This class truly did pull us every which way, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that I was more than a bit confused and dazed and scared. But we inevitably pulled through. Maybe it took us by the neck in a maternal fashion, guiding us through the horrors in its embrace.
ReplyDeleteI’d like to think that this class is a little bit of a preview of adult life. Yes, it’s a college class, but it allowed us to be free, to be expressive, to be alone, yet in an incredibly tight knit community. It sucker punched us a few times but sometimes things ultimately just… do that. It’s going to happen whether we like it or not, and the only thing we can do is armor ourselves up so we’re ready for whatever it throws our way. And it makes the sunshine in between that much more beautiful.
So, thank you, AP Lang. This abusive relationship (ALERT! This is a joke!) has benefitted me in more ways than I could ever imagine.
Romir, the scream I scrumpt when I saw this, it was like seeing the perfect finale episode to your favorite TV show. It’s so perfect for this prompt! I honestly had to go back to read your very first blog in addition to this, it genuinely made me somewhat emotional. Also, slightly tangential, but I never realized that the weird eye color things had a name, they’ve always just been like staticky mixes of vaguely identifiable complementary colors for me. Something I appreciated, even back with your very first blog, is how seriously you take your titling of them as love letters. It reminds me of how passionate and yolo you are about the class itself (and your personality in general)! The way you describe this dance between APEng and yourself felt so intimate and somewhat threatening with how it was “grasping your neck” (although that is probably the most accurate description of what APEng ends up being). Especially with the year coming to a close, I’ve had a number of my sophomore friends asking me about advice regarding APEng, and I believe that your blog has truly encapsulated what I would end up telling them. Our relationship to the class is one of two dancers, there is no surviving the class, learning to endure out of love and passion.
ReplyDelete