my dearest darling,

when i die under the sun,
when the space next to you feels emptier,
when the carrier pigeons stop their run,
i want you to feel,
the colder morning skies
and the softer evening tunes.
i want it to hurt,
to feel bounded to carry on
to like other women and to think of me,
because at least i’ll know it mean something,
when the moon no longer shines over home.

It’s your first birthday away from home. 18 was old school, full of firsts and fears of growing up. At 19, your last teen, you’re older now, firsts are no longer feasible yet no one tells you about your first birthday alone. Your friends at 18 are no longer the first you see when you the clock strikes midnight simply because they are not your first friends anymore. Your friends at 19 are different, older and birthdays are days you are born on, that doesn't mean they love you any less. At your last teen, you spend your first alone. You learn to re-love yourself. You no longer need the boy to text you at 00:00 nor your parents’ forehead kiss by the foyer. You no longer need a surprise cake nor the flashy birthday posts. You need yourself, who has always been there for you at your first first because here’s to re-loving yourself at your last teen, at nineteen.

You realize, as you’re sitting on your bed, holding the phone you begged your mommy to buy just months ago, that 18 is so far from 17. 17 was so beautiful; with youth in all its glory and the future just seemed so out of grasp. And yet, you grow and while growing, you make friends that you share your secrets to when dawn peeks, you make decisions that could change your life unknowingly and you fall in love, a love that’s raw and free, a love you can only have at 17. But somehow at 18, you lose the friends through petty fights and those shared secrets were now secrets for strangers, you make the wrong decisions because they were different from the decisions you once made at 17, and you fall out of love, a love you thought would last forever because of empty promises you made when everything seemed possible. 18 is beautiful too, you realize, because you can do all the things you did at 17, but not the way you did at 17. At 18, you make friends and you don’t share your secrets at the wee hours of the night but you share your goals, your passions and funky music you heard on the radio that plays during the late afternoon drives. At 18, you make decisions you never did at 17. It’s scary at first, but you’re no longer 17 and at 18, things are different, you’re more mature and you hold yourself with confidence and you stand up for the decisions you make. At 18, you fall in love again, but not with a boy that reeks of mud and barely has ****** hair, instead, you fall in love with yourself. You fall in love with your stomach that’s not flat, you fall in love with your dainty fingers and you fall in love with the life you created that you never really loved at 17. The phone in your hand dings, it’s a message from a friend you thought you lost at 17: ‘happy birthday.’ The screen blackens because you know you can reply later because when you’re 18, 19 seems so far away.

i see hills and the sun
but not the ones on paper,
with sunnies drawn on in crayon,
i see overlapping fields,
but not the one with daises and frills
i see them pass the horizon
i know i will never come to touch

the station i stood up
slowly disappearing into the rusty air,
the carrier windows are big and bright
yet i still see the shadows
cascading down my back
the curtains flap and clap
in between i see fragments
it’s luminescent in my eyes
but it flickers in ambiguity
an enigma i have yet to decrypt

She tells me “write, and never stop writing.” She pauses for a second before continuing, “for the one that creates, never disintegrates.”

“I am nothing but a personified soul that spews out meaningless words.” I reply.

“And yet you give reason and feeling to consonants and vowels that once meant nothing.” She tells me, peering over me or is she staring straight into my cortex? I can’t seem to figure that out through her black beaded pupils.

the cathartic breath,
burrowed beneath my lungs,
i hear it gasping, panting,
choking for air,
caged between my ribs
for i never let it free into the abyss,
it burgeons and flourishes
until any arrow that hits it,
will never miss.