lights flicker
in the distance
far far below

I’m here
looking down on it all
wrapped in a blanket
a book lies next to me
pages flipping themselves
in the cool summer breeze
inside are the sounds of life
outside are the sounds
of the questioning
the air is filled
with random notes
fluttering around me
like guardian angels
I know why they’re here

darkness
sat down
next to me
to keep me company
we look at the flickering lights
in the distance
he tells me
you’d do fine down there
if you wanted to
be a light
surrounded by light
but then he shifts his gaze
the moonlight
dancing through his being
but you’d do great
up there
be a light
where no one has dared to be
and with that
he left

I am slowly learning to disregard the insatiable desire to be special. I think it began, the soft piano ballad of epiphanic freedom that danced in my head, when you mentioned that “Van Gogh was her thing” while I stood there in my overall dress, admiring his sunflowers at the art museum. And then again on South Street, while we thumbed through old records and I picked up Morrissey and you mentioned her name like it was stuck in your teeth. Each time, I felt a paintbrush on my cheeks, covering my skin in grey and fading me into a quiet, concealed background that hummed “everything you’ve ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been,” on an endless loop. It echoed in your wrists that I stared at, walking (home) in the middle of the street, and I felt like a ghost moving forward in an eternal line, waiting to haunt anyone who thought I was worth it. But no one keeps my name folded in their wallet. Only girls who are able to carve their names into paintings and vinyl live in pockets and dust bunnies and bathroom mirrors. And so be it, that I am grey and humming in the background. I am forgotten Sundays and chipped fingernail polish and borrowed sheets. I’m the song you’ll get stuck in your head, but it will remind you of someone else. I am 2 in the afternoon, I am the last day of winter, I am a face on the sidewalk that won’t show up in your dreams. And I am everywhere, and I am nothing at all.

It terrifies me that we only get a limited amount of time with people. And that some people get more time than others who should have. I’m forever envious of those who’ve gotten more time with you than I have. That I may never get to be with you as long as they have. That our time is running out. And I miss you already. And I never want to say goodbye. At first it was slow, late nights in your car and afternoons in my bedroom. But now it feels like it’s happening all at once, like you’re doing a snow angel on my heart and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. Kissing on the sidewalk, holding hands in your coat pocket because I forgot to bring gloves. Wandering around museums and having hard conversations on your couch that make me love you even more; even when the air becomes glass, I can’t stop thinking about how lucky I feel to know you. That there’s no one else like you. My heart aches in your arms and aches when we’re apart. And I just want to be as close to you as possible, for as long as possible, because you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, and I love who I am when I’m with you.