Dear Katie
I know why you hate me
Love Lani

It's a dance.
A beautiful and deadly dance.
The kind where you put on your best makeup,
best shoes,
best dress,

only to fall apart at midnight.

The kind where you stay close,
pull away,
fingertips graze,
come together again.

Except sometimes,
they never return.
The fingertips never find each other.
They find a new partner to dance with.

They never come back to you.

I have an island
I bet you think I'm rich.
I'm really not.

I have an island.
People come and go.
But I'm the only one who stays.

Boats come in and out,
drifting by.
I meet people for years, or for hours,
but I feel a loss as they go.

I am an island.
All alone.
People come and go.
They never stay long.

For them,
I'm a tropical vacation, a place to get away from their problems.

But I was made of a volcano.
I crumble with every wave.
Pieces of me break off.
But I try to remain

tropical.

She reached out
"Hi, I'm Belle."
She talked first.
She wanted it.

I tried. We talked. We laughed.
We smiled and gasped for air.

"You have a beautiful smile," she whispered.

She has a beautiful everything.

One day.
That's all it took.

One day. One day gone.
Left on read.
Never seen.
"Hello?"
"Are you there?"
"..."

Now I'm here and they're gone.
Inhabitants on my island for a couple days.
Stopped by.
Said hello.
Promised.
Then left.

"Hey, have you seen her?"
"No."
"...Oh. Ok."

Out there there's
harsh judgement and criticism
smart, stronger, funnier, better people
failure and society
beauty and pain

Out there there's
a child laughing
a butterfly dancing
kind people, smart people, successful people, me
love, hope, beauty in the eyes of nature
not society

Tomorrow,
Next week,
Next month,
Next year

They're all the same.

"I'll lose weight tomorrow."
"I'll study tomorrow."
"I'll finish tomorrow."

But tomorrow never comes.