Part of me wants to scream at you:

That could be me!

I could be the girl who loves you desperately

and holds you until you fall asleep each night

and makes sure you know you’re never alone,

you’re never alone in this fight.

-
The other part of me holds me back,

tucks me into my bed, lays the sheets carefully over my chest,

takes my palm in her hand and says:

That was you.

It was right,

but it wasn’t right enough.

I am lost.

I am vacant.

I have no space to occupy.

-

There is air.

I can’t breathe it.

There are only hard lips

and crushed butterflies.

-

I see the sky.

I am lost in its

appeal to steal me away.

-

I contemplate

and I consider the

choice of flying far far away.

-

I was once only a dreamer,

a doe-eyed romantic,

who wrote letters next to

short coffee cups.

-

But the cups got taller,

and the words grew longer,

and I moved onto Wonderland.

-

It’s the in-between, the far

behind-the-scenes, where

no one will ever look to find

these dreams.

-

So I’ll store you away there,

with your tea and honeysuckle,

and I’ll tie my feet to the bed

so I can’t leave again.

-

I contemplate again,

and I consider the choice

of flying far far away,

-

of jumping on a plane, or of you

doing these things, but then I

remember one truth:

you live in reality, and I don’t.

This is a different kind of missing you.

This is a gentle yet rushing I miss you,

the I care about you and want the world for you I miss you.

This is the I can still feel your twinkling fingers dancing along

my arms—with careful touch for a freshman lover—I miss you.

-

But my muscles aren’t shaking anymore with missing you I miss you,

and this is the I think I know now that you miss me too but you still

haven’t said the words to me and neither have I but I"m

pretty sure now and that makes me miss you in a more

understated yet understood way.

-

I didn’t cry yesterday. Or today.

Tears may have touched my vision,

but they never blurred it.

I’m not afraid of this kind of missing you.

It’s much sweeter than before.

It’s the I care about you and I want the world for you I miss you,

and I want to be somewhere in that world I miss you,

but it’s okay if I’m not right next to you for that to happen…

I miss you.

There is a girl who wears velvet

and a white string of pearls.

She loves black Mary Janes

with white ankle socks,

and cherry garcia lips,

that leave those soft stains

on white table napkins.

-

A knowing smile,

a simple smirk,

a drawn out wink,

is all it took

for a black and white lens

to capture this girl

who wears velvet

and cherry garcia lips.

She stands there in her checkered dress,

velvet tights tucked into riding boots,

no time to change between her lives.

She’s on the move, caressing the lines between

mountains and slopes that rise up and let you see above

all of these worlds, and then she comes down to brush her hair,

pull it into a honey bee hive, apply her mascara that would

never dare run down those porcelain cheeks.

Her skin is milky, and her eyes are stars,

as she rubs a speck of dirt off her legs,

before it crushes itself into her impressions

of knees, of sturdy, strong, stable,

and before I blink she has run behind the church

to where the horses roam behind wooden blocks,

fences put up by the pastor’s son last summer,

the one she had dated for a day then discarded for a dream,

and she leaps over the barrier

before I can even dare to wonder how.

Should’ve figured she’d know how to make a show of her escape.

Guide the horse into her pathways, show them the streams and grassy fields

they needed to cross together and instill a fearlessness into a creature

made fearful by past strangers, but she pushes them forward with a simple

brush on the side, soft glide of the hand, then a gentle push into their skin

that would make anyone want to run towards that setting Arizona sun.

I’ve tried many times to understand you,
And each time I forget,
that you’re one of those people that can’t be
forgotten, but one that people desperately try to.

You’re that stranger you pass on the bridge
wearing regular clothes but a strange smile
that’s not a smile at all, but not even a frown.
It’s not an invite to talk, but talk is all you want to do
with this person,
so you can know why her cheeks are so red
and no one is keeping her warm in this cold.
Why is she alone when the world wants to hold her?

And she’ll intrigue you for a short while, this gust of wind
that never really settles
for anyplace other than where she feels safe,
under the covers, with a book and her shovel,
so she can dig her secrets deeper and deeper
and then scream up when the hole’s past six feet.
She’ll say I’m ready for your help, I’m ready now,
but as soon as she’s up, she’ll be off. Just watch.

It’s a cold secret that she keeps in
that non-smile of her’s as she crosses the bridge,
and I want to follow her again
—for the last time, I swear—
but I remember how many times I’ve said that before.
It’s not worth the miles with her. There’s no destination,
just a cruel circle that teaches you nothing,
nothing but how to exhaust yourself
and how to breathe in deeply.

I learned how to breathe from her.
It was the most constant thing about our journey.