She chokes on her apple turnover
Leaving a cloud of powdered sugar
That would stop Marlon Brando in his tracks.
Instead of cleaning up the dust,
She starts to swirl her fingers around in it
Until various shapes start to emerge.

She says it doesn't feel like there are clouds in the sky anymore
That maybe it's because she hasn't been keeping her chin up enough,
Admitting that optimism never quite suited her.
So instead, she says she'll make her own patterns
And test out realism for a while
Since she figures that realism is the only mindset that
Allows her something tangible to hold onto
When she's drowning in a false sense of security.

Let's sit on the back of your tailgate for old times sake
Looking at hands that used to hold
Connected to arms that kept each other from the cold
I wander my eyes down to lips that are no longer mine
And wonder if they can still spill words that were meant for me
But instead of filling the air with words that we've lost
We let the silence do all the talking for now.
And for the first time in a year
I didn't skip the songs that remind me of you.

She tells me,
"You're very self aware,
You know what, why and how you do things,
Yet you continue to do them."

I explain to her that I never learned how to ask for help
So I only ever knew how to look to myself for the answer
Which has led me to become pretty creative with metaphors
As well as entertaining internal monologues,
Like when I explained to her that my parents look at me
And see a knot of misfortune
Without looking at all the threads that I'm comprised of
Which led them to this conclusion of me.

She asked me if I ever thought of harming other people
To which I noted that I tend to play fruit-ninja
With peoples faces
In my head.
Though I'd never actually do anything,
Just as I'm able to keep a professional demeanor
Giving no hints to
The constant stream of expletives in my head.

She asks me why I don't feel like I have friends,
Which leads me to disclose
That I can't tell if I work too much
To spend time with friends
Or if I do it to distract from the lack of.

I laugh when I regale her
With how I recently bought a yoyo
Because it is relaxing
And makes me feel like a cool kid
That would be part of the gang in Hey Arnold,
Stating that it's been helping me with my panic attacks
By focusing on making my yoyo
Go around the world,
Pretending it was me,
Circumventing my lack of coping mechanisms.

Iliana looks at me, with her mouth slightly turned down
Attempting to keep a straight face
Though her brows still knit together in slight confusion
As she asks me how I'm able to say all of this with a smile on my face,
"Well," I state, "I don't have time to be depressed."

I'm going to mark you as mine
As I scratch my nails down your back in jagged lines
And drag my tongue across your every limb like vines
Tasting every morsel of your skin as we combine
Pushing my arms above my head
Making me clench the pillow by the threads
Engulfed by the pooling heat as it spreads
Through my body on this bed

Her crinkled eyes show lines of feigned contentment,
Veiling the gritted resignation within.

Every proverbial step taken was always slightly off
So little that it wasn't noticeable at the time,
Though it took her to an unintended destination.
Never understanding why she would exude so much of herself
And never obtain what she wanted.
Going over past steps ad nauseam, wondering where she faltered.
At which point did she start in the wrong direction
How can she get back
Should she even try
When it's unknown if anything will be left
Aside from an abandoned piece of herself
If she were to return.

You can't go backwards in life
But who says you can't circle back?

54% of people in Iceland believe in elves.
When I was in Iceland, my phone broke.
Nobody knows how.
I guess you could say that number is now closer to 55%.

I haven't had a phone now for about a month now.
It's not as though I used it much to begin with,
but it has posed as an inconvenience,
such as not knowing the time.

I had to go out and buy a watch.
Watches always remind me of you.
You would tell me,
"Men judge other men by their watches and shoes."
I always thought this was dumb.
Then I started taking notice of people's watches and shoes.

I always liked your watches best.
My favorite one showed all of the cogs and gears.
It was much more intricate than the one I bought.
Then again, you've always had an eye for details,
Whereas I tend to trip up over the small things.

Now, whenever I check the time,
I think of you.

I may discontinue wearing this watch.
After all, time has always slipped through my fingers,
Among other things.
There's no use fighting the inevitable.  

Instead, I'll simply learn to map the sky.
Invest in a sundial.
Read the moon.
Track the North star.

Watches are only good for those waiting for something to happen.

A month after radio silence,
seven cities away,
I heard you were with another girl
who was nothing like me.
I was told she resembled a koala
and that she laughed like a three car pile-up.
For a second, I thought maybe your red truck was involved.
I don't know why this caused me to lose sleep.
And still, I lay there
haunted by your phantom touch.
Thoughts of your hands refuse to yield
to the tangible distance of mine.

As such, I compiled a list of things to think of instead of you:

1) In 2014, Toyota recalled 690,000 U.S. Tacoma pick up trucks, model 2005-11 due to a rear suspension part that could break and possibly puncture the gas tank or damage a break line.
I guess that's why your breaks were always so bad.
And now you're with a girl
who sounds like the aftermath of devastation.
But hey, you're the one who has to live with that.
I actually hate all red trucks now by extension.
And now I'm thinking of you again. ****.

2) Red is the 5th most popular truck color.
I see it everywhere.
My heart beats faster in fear that one will be you.
It sinks when it's not.
But that's not important.

3) Kangaroos are part of the marsupial family.
They have begun to overpopulate in Australia.
Some have started to mitigate this by eating them for dinner.
Koalas are also marsupials.
I think they should be added to the menu as well.
It's not as though they ever contributed to anything.
All they do is eat and embrace being a pseudo-bear.
This is what you're dating.

4) In Spain, they use the endearment
"Tu media narunja"
which translates to
"You are the other half of my orange."
I always liked that.
I told you this in the letter I sent you.
But that was one of the letters that was returned.

5) Psychosomaticism is when a person starts to suffer physical illness
due to mental or emotional anguish.
This made me start to wonder,
people say that you can't die from a broken heart.
Maybe we have just convinced ourselves
that it was other factors.
However, we all know that the body cannot survive without a heart, and so if one were to give his or her heart to another,
and the carrier hypothetically took it to a medieval stretching device
and ripped it apart,
it would only lead to the conclusion
that broken hearts do cause death.
Maybe that's not the best thing to think about right now.

6) Buddhism.
The more I read about it, the cooler it seems.

7) Koalas can survive on a diet of eucalyptus leaves.
Eucalyptus leaves are poisonous to most animals.
That's just not normal.
If koalas went extinct within the next week,
I don't think I would mind. I'm starting to hate them more and more.


8) We went to the zoo when we first started dating.
I told you then how I didn't like koalas.
They're viscous troglodytes.
There's a picture of us from that day
placed in a collage I made for you.
It was still hanging at your parents place last I was there.
But that was back in November.
You probably took it down.

9) This list of distractions has failed at doing what it was supposed to do.

No matter how intent I am at being productive enough
to distract myself from your absence,
everything that didn't remind me of you
now reminds me of you.
I'm trying so hard to move on with my life,
but I can't stop thinking about
how much I hate
that you moved on faster than me.
That you don't miss me the way I miss you.
I'm still dealing with the loss of everything we were
and you already replaced me with a ******* koala.
I became everything I always wanted to be for you
and you became a stranger.
I hate that this list of distractions
just further validated how ingrained you were
in my whole world.
But ****...
Never mind.