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The realist and the romanticist have no difference but in mind.

The romanticist and the realist both sit on my shoulders. I can’t tell which has a horn and a tail and which has feathered wings.

They do not compete. Sometimes they argue, sometimes they fight, but they are always in perfect harmony with each other. They discuss a myriad of concerns, from trivial subjects like music and Taylor Swift to whatever the meaning of life is. To theology and philosophy, from Heaven to Hell and back again. 

I’ve found myself letting one take precedence over the other depending on the company I keep. Around my family—especially my father—it’s usually the realist. When it comes to artistry, we don’t enjoy the same things; we don’t dabble in the same vein of culture. My puns go misunderstood, my woes are called dramatic. 

I don’t mind. What are friends for anyway? It is around my friends that the romanticist awakens. She absorbs even slightly compelling song lyrics and campaigns unintelligible voice memos that explain the intricacies of a minor embarrassment. She recites inside jokes that would be incomprehensible to the Gen X (or even millennial) ear. She empathizes, but poorly so, and writes just the same. She attempts to write, to converse, to sing meaningfully, but her shallow thoughts, lacking a firm foundation, fall flat.

Though this may seem like a fairly even split, the realist would beg to differ. She hardly opens up around my developing younger siblings, and discussions with my father are few and far between, not to mention repetitive.

Late at night, and in the right company, the blunt, unconforming realist comes out to play. She smiles in an almost wicked way, stretching her tail (or maybe her wings), as if reawakened. The romanticist does not feel threatened by the realist’s return; rather, she understands the realist’s suppression and is willing to take the back seat to her sister.

The realist’s smile seemed sinful, but her intentions were not. She truly wishes to have a discussion. She doesn’t exist to play devil’s advocate or voice the insensitive facts. She exists for a reason: to exhibit reason. Occasionally, the romanticist returns with an inside joke or appreciation of a certain film, but the realist remains dominant.

As much as I would have denied it, those conversations were child’s play. Hardly were they the profound dialogues that I thought, or imagined them to be. They were the same bathos discussions as before, but disguised in fictitious intellectualism and eye bags. They were enjoyable because the person with whom they held was enjoyable. 

Those conversations haven’t occurred for at least a month. I imagine the realist somehow misses them, but both shoulder-frequenting individuals are busy with school, with leadership, with artistry. On occasion, they are allowed to play. But both of them know that this road leads nowhere, a pointless, Pyrrhic war.

So, they babble. They try to convince the outside listener that I am intelligent, so he thinks I am stupid. To keep him away.

Because either way, there are no winners. 

No matter how many editorials I write, how many times I say I hate columns now, or how many 2 a.m. talks I hold with someone just beyond my reach, I have not changed. I am still the same bland, shallow, conforming person as before. I am still a faux poet.