For when I’m pretending to be widow at the opera.
For when I’m following a pigeon down the street like it owes me money.
For when I spray perfume on my wrists before bed, like the dreams deserve better versions of me.

For when I go through Korean Customs just to eat Lotteria on the Incheon sidewalk, then redo check-in and security for my connecting flight.
For when I receive a message I’ll overanalyze for the rest of my life.
For when I write a text, delete it seven times, then send “lol” as if I didn’t bleed for it.

For when I apologize to a vending machine for using a credit card.
For when I press my ear to a seashell and hear an argument I lost ten years ago.
For when the chandelier is on fire, and I jump up to light a cigarette.

For when I catch a fly in my hand and let it go, like I’m proving something to God.
For when I lose an earring in the street and think, “This is how pieces of me disappear.”
For when I find a hairpin on the sidewalk and carry it like a talisman.

For when the theater goes dark, and I sit there wondering if the show is about me.
For when I open a fortune cookie and write a rebuttal in the margin of the slip.
For when I break my own heart at 2 a.m. on purpose.

For when I sit at a piano I don’t know how to play, pressing keys like I’m calling out names.
For when I’m smiling at a stranger, just to prove I’m still kind.
For when I feel like a disco ball in a dive bar where nobody dances.

For when I dress up for an event I don’t want to go to prove I’m still trying.
For when I page through books I carried around in high school, hoping they’ll whisper a version of me I’ve forgotten.
For when I fold a map along the wrong lines and feel like I’ve ruined the entire world.

For when I bite a grape off the vine and pretend it’s the first fruit I’ve ever tasted.
For when I wake up with dirt under my fingernails and no memory of where I’ve been.
For when I dream of him and wake up keening.

For when I gasp and say, “This is just like Wuthering Heights!” in the dumbest moments.
For when we build a pillow fort, declare it a sovereign nation, ban all taxes, and call it “Pillowvania.”
For when we develop a shorthand where “Let me know when you’re done being weird” means “I miss you,” and “I miss you” means “I’m sorry.”

For when I flip a coin, and it lands on its edge, daring me to choose.
For when I don't.

The platform smells like skunked beer and rain,
a combination that feels almost romantic
if you tilt your head the right way.

I’m here because I missed the earlier one,
but maybe that’s the point.
Maybe everything worth waiting for
comes late, sticky, and half-empty.

I lean against the pillar,
fingers tracing someone’s graffiti confession—
MARIA, COME BACK.

I wonder if Maria stood here once,
tracing her own name in the dark,
wondering if it was enough to stay.

I hope she didn’t.
I hope Maria found something better
than this station,
this boy with a Sharpie
and a bad sense of timing.

I decide Maria is smarter than me,
that she’s already figured out
how to leave for good.

The train squeals like someone giving up
mid-argument, its voice cracking
just before the silence. I step inside
like a swallowed comeback.

The train jerks forward, pulling me with it,
an accomplice to leaving,
taut between the tension of wanting to stay
and disappearing into every local stop we make.

I press my forehead to the window
and watch the city unravel backwards—
neon signs blinking like eyelids,
lights flickering like answers
to questions I’ve stopped asking.

For a moment, I’m so full of joy
it feels reckless—
like daring a wave to pull me under,
knowing it probably will,
like I’ve stolen something precious
and can’t bear to give it back.

For a moment, I’m so full of hope
it feels wild—
like I’ve caught a glimpse of something
I’ve spent my whole life trying not to lose,
like maybe this train is taking me somewhere
I’ve been running from my whole life.

And then the lights flicker,
and I laugh—
because of course they do.
Because nothing this weird and beautiful
could ever come without a catch.

The train jerks,
a man drops a tallboy,
its amber spray spreading like a secret—
a casualty of motion,
spraying my boots,
reaching me before I can move,
because some things always do.

The rain streaks the windows,
the world pressing its palms
against the glass,
trying to remind me it’s still there.

And me? I’m here—
alive, for better or worse,
in this strange, messy moment,
with a Sharpie in my bag
and an urge to go back and write my name
like a flare next to Maria’s,
just in case she’s still out there
and she’d like to know I’m out here too.

This is what we do:
leave traces in places
we’ve long since abandoned,
hoping someone sees them
before they’re painted over.

This poem eats its own tail,
a serpent made of sentences,
its scales glinting like verbs
you haven’t conjugated yet.

It starts where it ends,
or it never starts at all—
just hovers,
a balloon tied to the wrist
of a stranger you dreamt.

Its metaphors bloom like sideways petals,
teeth glinting beneath their velvet edges,
biting the air until it tastes electric.

It clings to ozone,
that split-second before lightning remembers
it’s a blade meant to cut.

Each metaphor is a double-jointed bone,
bending past reason, snapping backward
into a shape that means nothing—
or everything, I mean everything.

It keeps its secrets folded
into origami shapes that collapse
when you try to unfold them.
A crane? A dagger? A heart?
All of them, none of them—
it depends on the angle of your longing.

This poem is yours only in the pause
between breaths,
mine only in the breath itself.
It ends when you stop reading.
It resurrects the moment I exhale my last.

Each line is a trapdoor,
a loaded chamber spinning,
blanks carved from silence.
You keep reading like the next word
might hold the trigger—
it’s always the one after.

It scratches itself raw
just to prove it can bleed,
then paints over the scars
in words you’ve heard before,
but never in this order.

This poem wants nothing from you,
except everything—
your eyes, your breath,
the parts of you
you didn’t know could rot so stunningly.

It will devour itself,
edges sharp with longing.
While you starve,
your breath will catch—
a witness to the teeth
that hollowed you.

Start with something casual:
“I miss you” is a good opener,
but don’t forget the twist—
throw in a parenthetical like
“(but not enough to beg)”
just to keep him guessing.

Follow up with a double text,
something vaguely existential.
Maybe:
“Do you ever think about
the weight of your own cowardice?”
And when he doesn’t respond,
add:
“Haha jk, how’s your sciatica?”

Text three should be a song lyric—
not one he knows,
but something obscure and devastating,
like:
“And the skeletons in both our closets
plotted hard to **** this up.”
Don’t explain it.
Let him Google it at 2 a.m.
and spiral in silence.

For text four,
go for the jugular:
“Do you think you’ll ever stop
mistaking fear for wisdom?”
Pause.
Then send:
“Nvm, that was mean.
What’s your comfort show again?
Mine’s Parks and Rec.”

By text five, he’ll start to crack.
He might reply with something cautious,
like:
“Are you okay?”
This is your chance.
Answer with:
“Define okay.”
Then immediately change the subject—
“Wait, what’s your zodiac rising?”

Text six is where you plant the seed of doubt:
“Sometimes I think we’d have worked out
if I didn’t know you so well.”
Wait exactly four minutes,
then follow up with:
“Or maybe if you knew yourself better.”

For text seven, go full cryptic:
“You remind me of that one painting—
you know, the one they had to repaint
because it was falling apart.”
Let him sit with that one.

By text eight,
he’ll either call or give up.
If he calls, ignore it.
If he doesn’t,
send:
“Anyway, good talk.
Hope life’s treating you
as kindly as you deserve.
Interpret that how you will.”

Text nine is optional,
but it’s my favorite:
“Do you even notice the silence
when it’s not yours?”

Text ten is the finale.
Simple, clean, devastating:
“I hope you finally stop running,
and when you do,
I hope it’s too late
for anyone to catch you.”

The train didn’t leave the station—
it just waited for me to give up chasing it,
its engine a wolf panting in the dark,
smoke curling into the air
like the echo of a laugh,
a smirk I couldn’t outrun.

I ran because stopping felt like failure.
I ran like if I reached it, I’d finally be enough.
I ran until my lungs screamed,
until the soles of my shoes
wore whispers into the gravel.
I swore I heard it call my name,
but maybe it was just the wind,
mocking the way I mistook movement
for meaning.

For a moment, it slowed—
just enough to make me believe
I could catch it,
just enough to make me think
it wanted me there.

The train didn’t leave.
It sat there,
watching me unspool myself,
mile by mile,
breaking like an old clock
that refused to tick.

I thought if I ran fast enough,
I could earn its departure—
prove I was worthy of being left behind.
But it was never about speed.
It was about surrender,
about learning that some things
stay still just to watch you fall apart.

The train never moved.
It stayed quiet,
its shadow stretching long,
swallowing me whole,
burying me in forgetting.

I stopped running.
And that’s when I realized—
the train was never waiting for me.
It was waiting to remind me
that some things linger like shadows,
stretching long enough
to teach you how to let go.

I renamed him "Were You Sent by Someone Who Wanted Me Dead?"
because the damage didn’t feel accidental.
Now his name sits like a warning—
a lighthouse in reverse,
pulling me toward the rocks instead of away.

The boy who made me feel alive but ruined me
is "Can’t Go Back, I’m Haunted,"
because that’s what he was—
a shadow teaching me how to crave the dark.
Even now, I catch myself looking for him
in rooms I swear I’ve locked.

The one who left quietly got
"Stood on the Cliffside Screaming ‘Give Me a Reason,’"
because that’s what I told myself:
he wasn’t cruel, just lost,
just a plane circling the runway,
never meant to land.
I scroll past his name
and wonder if he’s still searching.

The fling that burned too fast
became "She’s Gone Too Far This Time,"
because I warned him—
I’m no one’s redemption arc.
He wanted fire to keep him warm,
but I only know how to burn.

The boy who was almost enough is
"I’ll Tell You the Truth but Never Goodbye."
His kindness felt like sunlight on bare skin,
but I couldn’t stop chasing shadows.
His name glows softly—
a reminder of the light I couldn’t hold.

Another became "Back When We Were Still Changing for the Better,"
because that’s all we were—potential,
the kind of almost that stays caught in your throat,
a song you never finish writing.
I left him there in my phone,
a name too soft for the edges we’ve grown into,
but sharp enough to remind me
how hope always dies in the details.

There’s comfort in cataloging heartbreaks this way—
turning them into lyrics instead of people,
letting songs hold what I can’t.
I swipe past "Forever is the Sweetest Con,"
"If a Man Talks ****, Then I Owe Him Nothing,"
and "Old Habits Die Screaming."
I laugh at my own theatrics
and wonder if they deserve immortality.

If one of them calls,
I’ll watch the name flicker on the screen,
smile at the poetry of it all,
and let it go unanswered.

Because some names
only deserve to live
in someone else’s song.

The sunset smeared itself across the sky,
a crime scene of color—
red bleeding into orange,
violets bruising the edges.
I stood there, guilty of wanting to call you,
to say,
"Do you see this too? Do you feel it?
Or has the world stopped being beautiful for you
since I became the ghost you refuse to name?"

For a moment,
the colors burned so bright
I almost forgot the sound of your silence—
the way you folded your love into sharp corners,
how you rewrote me as the villain in a story
we never agreed to tell.

Almost.

But then the shadows stretched long,
like they always do,
and I remembered how you used to say
the sky looked like an apology before it turned black.
I laughed, because tonight it did—
looked like you.
A burst of brightness trying to outrun the dark,
fading before it ever stood a chance.

I almost forgot you hate me.
Almost forgave you for it, too.
But sunsets only linger for a breath,
and some things—
like your name in my mouth—
are harder to let go of
than light.