From midnight on, I couldn’t help staring at the light ignited from the phone; waiting anxiously for a message I, for some reason, knew I wouldn’t receive. The night longer than day, so cruel of overthinking and possibility was held in the air. To add, the moon couldn’t keep away, its light kept shining; temping me to call, like the loose thread on my sheets I couldn’t resist to pull – I didn’t. I couldn’t wait till day, so the moon could meet the sun, and the stars could lie in the clouds. The coldness of the night’s snow shown sheets embraced the moon, cradled me into the clean white blankets, but I wanted the embrace of the burning sun as it would rage. Rage for me, rage at the moon.  By 1 o’clock, the sheets became my comfort embedding itself into the heat I radiate, waiting impatiently. Imagining the warmth of my blankets as the radiating heat of your body against mine. By 2 o’clock, I went unnoticed, the sky lightening, my crippling exhaustion leaving me numb. My eyelids heavy at the hallucinations I was witnessing. You became a vision, and like the moon you were fading, fading – gone. My fascination towards phone lights dimmed towards to growing moon – bigger and smaller like the strength of my heart. At 2:45, I became taunted to close my eyes completely. Through withdrawal, I only crash, slipping slowly under my sheets completely. I only fear that I will suffocate myself; deprive myself of air before 3. From the moon to the stars, counted the stars and the constellations like I counted the minutes I waited. The 45 after 2, taunted me, the titanic sinking deeper in my heart. Second per second, minute per minute waiting until 3. By 3:45, I only saw how your eyes lit up when you saw me in the night’s moonlight, trying to count the stars between our giggles in our dreams…

-         Emilyn Nguyen

I have been trying for days after days, hours after hours, minutes after minutes, seconds after millisecond to figure out a way to describe that echoing in my chest as my heart cries out for you. It beats fast, then slow, only to be fast again because my mind relapses with images you, and the connecting breath from my lungs begin to lack air as you leave me breathless. With every full thump that drags in every breath that catches in my throat when I realize how intensely you lack a need for me. I only hoped your bones were captivated by fresh air they never get to feel; is that why they peek through your skin stretched taut as if they’re trying to putt through your nerve endings or is the air chilling your epidermis making goose bumps arise? Why do your hips and ribs jut out like they crave the atmosphere’s breath? The very act of breathing reminds you that you’re not whole – not without me, cried the heart; cried the skin’s drying touch; cried the eyes; cried the muscles aching. Save her, save me, for my heart won’t live without her breath. Yet the tattoo on her chest, her heart’s fighting beat contradicts the hope the lungs held: Do not resuscitate.

-         Emilyn Nguyen

In this white room, I wish to remove the nails from the wood I stand on, so that the floorboards could be peeled from the gravity grounding them. I’ll find the authority to do so because I've already filled their cracks with my thoughts like the dust-like-sediments that have already piled up. When I do, I mourn to lie beneath them. Hammer the nails back on them if you please – tight to the eye, but loose to the touch. When I am ready, I’ll rise and face this fear of mine that is if the silence treats my broken soul. As of now, there, I could hide in still silence, but then again it still wouldn't be completely silent because I cannot leave my mind behind for a minute. The rug that lies above me would soak up my wandering synthesis of lost thoughts helping me until it’s to be filled to the maximum. When you find me lying there, I couldn't tell you what I’m thinking, even if I wanted to. I thought that I had words for everything, which I could always find refuge in my ability to arrange letters into feelings but I can’t. My emotions are the fickle disease floating in the atmosphere of this room contagious to those who enter: I. When I hear you walking on top of the wood, your toes I see from the cracks, you check if I’m in bed but I have hidden underneath the floors waiting for you to apologize, but you've let the silence do it for you.

-         Emilyn Nguyen

I want to imagine falling fast because you’ve pushed me off a bridge but before I go, kiss me quickly while making it last so I can determine how much it will hurt when you say goodbye. To determine if it was too soon or too late because I had understood that you were the one that didn't feel the same. Yet, I understand that people come and people go but I don’t ever want to say goodbye to you. I question why you couldn't let the future pass and simply let go. I only ever so slightly want to say goodnight to you. I only hope that the good in our good-nights will mean I will see you in my dreams and goodbyes will mean that we will always end up meeting again tomorrow. I want to see you, even if it means for a slight minute like the moon meets the sun just before daylight forty five minutes after five and after the late eight o’clock orange-crimson sunset. You were convinced that there was no good in goodbye; no good in goodnight, but at first hand it may appear too hard, but look again. Always look again. I promise there’s good in that.

-         Emilyn Nguyen