“...I really do hope that you’re happy.”

“She’s special,” He said. “She’s someone to hang onto.”

“I connect with her,” He said, “I don’t connect with anyone else that way. I can talk to her about anything, and everything, and it’s easy.”

“Well it makes sense,” I said, “You guys were pretty much best friends.”

I listen to them, and I wonder what ingredient of human I am missing. 

“they make it look so easy, connecting with another 

human being. It’s like no one told them it’s the

hardest thing in the world”

He told me she was special, and he meant it, fully and completely. I didn’t know that sort of honest romance existed outside of love songs.

“I miss those blue eyes, how you kiss me at night...”
I only miss the idea of someone else’s fictional memories.

3 and 13 to go.

We shook hands and it was cordial, and he smiled with a hint of imp, and I wondered I factored into his life story. You just never know who you’ve had an impact on, or who will have an impact on you. I know I’ll remember him, I wonder if he gave me a passing thought. 

We hugged, and I felt small, and he seemed great, and far away, and I wondered if I factored into his life story. I know I’ll always remember him. Sometimes late at night I cross my fingers that maybe I wasn’t just a passing thought.

Charlotte wasn’t peachy keen. She was good she said, but not peachy keen.

A world where a girl can worry about whether that boy like her, instead of worrying about where to get her next meal. Where a boy can save up for those shoes, instead of worrying about fighting cancer.

Where every kid is free worry about the mundane, and the superficial, and the quaint,  because that’s what children should be worrying about, not about their survival. Where the biggest problems are what to wear for school tomorrow, and why a mug of tea costs six dollars, and what is the forgotten combination to their locker.

I hope I grow up to be more like you.

1 and 56 to go.

“I was sitting in a deli reading Dorian Gray...”

I wonder how to factor in.

1 and 31 to go.

We know that you’re soft, ‘cause we’ve all seen you dancing

Sometimes I go down to the park to visit Paula. Her plaque reads 'free spirit', and I wonder what that meant to her. 

Lips chapped and cheeks rosy from the chilled air that plays, pulls at my ruffled hair. Tight gloves, my fingers are constricted.

I imagine she had warm fingers, and a good laugh. Her lips were full and well-kissed without regret. She liked to skinny dip. Her eyes were filled with mischief, and when you locked with them, you became intoxicated.

I imagine she liked to take deep breathes. I imagine that she liked to close her eyes and call into the canyon. I imagine she hitch-hiked to her intentions.

Uninhibited and running with the high, I imagine she might have died topless, living in the field of geese. Somehow serene.

Jesus was quite the rebel in his day.

It’s all about clarity. 

It’s like an essay, it’s like a physics equation. WWMD? It’s always like an essay.

“...His love hate affair with his racist clientele...”

There’s always a love hate affair. I wonder if I was different than the ones before me, or if I’m a standard, mass produced.

It’s not test anxiety, it’s life anxiety. 

In her simple little way

Most of the time, I pretend not to care. 

Sometimes I actually don’t care. 

But on those evenings when you’re home alone, lying in bed with a stomach exploding from the half-pound of butter you ruthlessly administered for poignant self-sabotaged, it proves desperately difficult to keep up the pretense.

The loneliness starts to seep in like a fog. 

It creeps in through the cracks in the window, and from behind the baseboards. It comes up from the mattress, like a puff of dust, a last exhale from my dying grandmother. Its tentacles ringlet silkily around the room from the music notes of “Blackbird”. 

And even though it’s only half-hearted, I wish I was at least desired. It would bring hot-water bottle comfort to know a thing like that.

But it’s only half hearted, and I’m perfectly happy. Just a little lonely. 

I'd like a long, strong hug.

But I shake hands at arm’s length, so there’s not much to say.

"Because right now it feels like I'm in free fall"

Sometimes I wonder what that's like.

we're down to our last jar of jam, and the only spoon

It’s nearly time to jump ship.
Restless. Just like the ship, tossing to and fro in the purple black storm.
Reckless. It’s time for something like that.
I can feel the itch in my fingers, and calves, and balls of my feet. It’s telling me it’s time to go free.
I can feel my body splay wildly in all directions, jumping with all kinds of dreams, pushing forward like a mob of reporters.
And no one is left to steer the ship.

I guess that means, its time to jump.
Jumping is easy. You just jump.

It’s the landing that’s hard.

“It’s not goodbye, it’s just goodnight.” But if I don’t wake up, does it matter in the slightest that I said goodnight when it was really goodbye?

“Hey Fred, you alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”

Sometimes, you aren’t alright. And so you hope that on those days, you’re majestic.