You state your purpose quite clearly, love, yet how do you propose to obtain it? I, unlike the countless girls you have loved, have spouted words for, will not fall that easily, will not let you read me. Yes, I may wear my heart on my sleeve, but it is sewn there with the tightest and most precise stitches. How will your deign to rip it from its’ rightful place?


You know, perhaps I like being alone sometimes, did you ever imagine that? The roar of the silence and the blinding quality of the shadows are my home, why have you come in to destroy them and replace them with something all your own?


Yet being the simple shadow of being alone and the ecstasy of being your star clash, and I cannot decide which I like better. The collision blinds me, and I am left with a choice. Why choose? Why not have both? If only life were that easy, love. We would all live in castles made of tiger lilies and dance on wisps of thunderclouds, but alas life is cruel, and life is cold.


I choose….well. I like my stitches. I like my dark shadows, I like the engravings I place on my skin when I am alone with no one but the empty shower to echo my breathing, slow and shaky. But I like the careful way you pry each stitch up from the heart sewn to my sleeve, the starlight you give off with every breath you take, the kisses you cover me in when I attempt in vain to cover my scars, the ones that will never fade, though my skin will heal itself over.


The choice is made, dearest. With much sacrifice, with many questions still unanswered, with my breath hanging on a tiny thread I feel is destined to break….


I choose you.

If I fall,
I will just have to hope
That I land on the
Bounce houses
And loose feathers
From pillow fights
Of my childhood

Rather than the
Broken glass
And hard concrete
Of my future

I am a wrapper
a safe guard
a wall.

I am the outside
that won't let
me fall.

I am the cov'ring
the foil
the start.

I am the paper
that protects
my heart.

Most of the time, we don't really like to tell the story as it is. Sure, we give glimpses. But we don't really give ourselves over to the full open heart surgery. I'm giving my story up now. Do what you will with it. Judge for yourself whether I'm justified, or don't judge at all. Look for a message or read just to know me. This is our secret now, passed on through pixels and light. Do what you will with it. All I ask is that you listen.

As a kid, I think I was happy.
My memories of those times are like sepia photographs, snapshots of moments that are intact except for their color, their feeling. They are few and far between. There's a purple seesaw, a tortoise named Shelly and I think we all were happy.

My dad died when I was in 8th grade, a heart attack, but the funny thing is, I don't think that's what broke me.
It made me a little more worldly-wise, sure, but the memories of that time are all the same as the one before. There's a boat in DC, and a dancer named Rebecca and I think we all were happy.

My sophomore year, that's when the memories change. They come alive. They burn with colors so bright that I have to stick my head into a pillowcase just to breathe.
The funny thing is, I can get over my dad dying just fine, but when my coaches were mean to us, that is when I broke.

They were a little more than mean. They lied to us, told us that the judges said we'd never be good enough for a higher class, just because we were Ridgewood. They told us we were cry babies. They had us do things without teaching us how. We kept getting hurt. Someone threw up on the right side of the gym. They pulled me and my co-captain aside and told us that they had chosen us for a reason- what possible reason? i wonder now. To manipulate us?- and that we weren't doing our jobs and we needed to push our team harder.

We just wanted to be good enough. I thought maybe I could work harder. I guess that's always been one of my problems. So when asked by an administrator what on earth was going wrong...

I defended them.

When my team needed me most, I stood up for our coaches. And then they quit on us. Because they were only twenty or so? Because we were all incompatible? Because, though I never want to think this way, maybe they're just not very nice people?

Of course then I could see how badly my team was hurting. And I was supposed to be a leader? I tried to keep everyone together, to make up for what I had let happen. We organized our own performance, we got new coaches. I helped build my team into a place where people felt built up, not torn down.

I looked for closure. I sent our old coach a message, saying I wanted to understand her side of the story, telling her that she had hurt me. She said she was sorry about that. But what got me was that she never admitted that she too could've done something wrong.

The funny thing is, this all should've been easy to let go. I mean, I never have to see her, be reminded of her, ever again. People go through so, so much worse.

But it was like the moment she quit, someone opened my own personal Pandora's box.

And I know I'm not happy now.

I smile all the time, I work hard as a leader, I'm an A student, a merit scholar. But I see so much now that it hurts. Does anyone else keep thinking about how random our cute, little existence is? I see and I know what the right thing to do is, so I have to keep doing it. It's 24/7 awareness. It's not very fun. In fact, it makes me so tired, I can hardly do the things that need to get done.

I don't know if I'm okay. Maybe I'm just some imposter, looking for a little love in this lonely world and I'm actually doing fine. Maybe I'm just some lonely, smart kid.

Or maybe, inexplicably, with no right to be so,
I'm really very broken.

That's my story, the why I am the way I am at least. Thoughts on a page, my own catharsis sent out into the world. Now, at the very end of this all, I think this was more for myself, than those who will see this tomorrow. But if you have read to the end, I thank you for being interested in another broken soul.

The others- they all tell their version of this as a brag
a slight air of look at what happened to me
But when they commiserate I never say a word

And I've tried to figure out why these past few years
Maybe it's that I don't feel it's fair to judge when I can't peer into the psyche of the
other side
Maybe it's that I'm trying to pretend I've already found closure
But I think these might all be excuses
A way to hide what I don't want to admit is the truth

The reason why we most often hold our tongues and look down
is shame

so it would seem that I'm still ashamed I let this come to pass

it wasn't your fault, the therapist says

but you saying that doesn't help if I don't believe it

I hope to finally meet the sky one day* the Owlet admitted.

You shoot too high the Night laughed. **You'll only fall, never fly

Does she still think about me?* asked the Owlet.

I don't think she cared about you enough for you to remain in their thoughts replied the Wind.

The sorcerer grabs me by the shoulders.
"Of course you have the power!"
I shake my head no.
"I can't. I don't understand. I'm just an ordinary person. I'm just like everyone else."
The sorcerer scoffs at me.
"Yes, I know."
I'm puzzled by this. He sees it written on my face and sighs.
"Everyone has the power," he says. "The rest of them just don't know how to use it."
My confusion only grows. I ask,
"But why not?"
He smiles, like it is the simplest thing.
"They deny that it is theirs. They refuse to make the choice to use it."
"But why me?" I ask. "Why did I find the power?"
I am suddenly afraid to know the answer.

The sorcerer looks at me sadly.
"Because you came looking," he says. "I tried to warn you that it's not an easy path. But you kept searching. Why did you keep searching? You have such control, such power now. It is your responsibility to use it well, always and forevermore. This is a hard road, my dear girl."
For the first time, I understand the full weight of what I've just committed to.
"But you're going to teach me to use it, right?"
I beg.
"My dear girl, you already know how," he says,
And in a flash the sorcerer disappears.

It is just me, alone now,
Me and my charge
to choose to do right
*always and forever more.