First there was one,
and then a flame,
a crescendo -  
then none.

These are the moments, Carl,
when we are not bent up over
moldy textbooks, trapped inside
stale florescent rooms, but rather
here, alive as we ought to be,
racing from Sterling to Emerson to the
bus loop, breathing in the
fat splatters of rain that drop like
bullets from the sky and strike us
deep within the most fearsome of places,
the one which cries out: "Stop! –
you were built for a sea of grass, and
cool mountain air, and the small
grey chipmunks that scurry between the
crevices of the Rockies – for song,
dance, love, laughter, the
beauty of life itself."

I never planned any of this, Carl –
I didn't mean to fall in love with her.
She drew me into her life, and now I am
open; the world is bigger than it was before.

Tonight, the air outside my window is
quiet, and I feel oddly detached from my
body as I write to you about
songs, chipmunks, and
bullets falling from the sky.
I hope you are safe;
I hope you are well.

We met in the midst of dust motes floating around the old chalkboard-classroom of University Hall. You introduced me to Amber – your close friend, I thought – and your thirst for after-tutorial Starbucks between 11:20 and 11:35 a.m. After all, what did it even matter to be five minutes late to class when we will all one day be so; what did it even matter if none of it ever really does when the curtain drops, when the record ends, when the symphony of consciousness rises to a close. So you went for Starbucks, and I walked to lecture alone – vying for that front-row chair so that I might ease the pain in my hips – and watched, noticed you in the months afterward, through red winter parkas and brown spring attire – until we met again in the odorous lab of second-year microbiology, and you drew me into your world of friends, of housemates, of late-night wine and cheese gatherings – until my heart – that soft, useless thing – quickened its beat upon hearing your stories of ex-crushes and Halloween near-hookups with a would-have-being-a-bad-decision girl. You drew me into you, you: an everyday girl, who in my daydreams was hardly so; I latched onto you and pulled myself out of that dark, solitary hole – because you were there, you were there, you were always there. I let myself be swept away by that river of friends, of daydreams, of late-night phone calls about life, the universe, and your complaints about organic chemistry. I turned a blind eye, because the illusion was far better than the solitude, better than watching my life collapse again into that small, small state. I let slide it all: the apathy, the sleep abnormalities, the ****** innuendos, until I texted you a few nights ago, two minutes into a rising panic initiated by the realization that my ex had killed themselves – a discovery that later proved to be untrue – and you replied with laughter and an inability to help. You just don't know; you just don't see that to complain of your ex-girlfriend's low libido is a reflection on you, not her, or even the two of you – so I put down the phone; I ignored the messages for a day, then two, and my world changed, opened anew –  
I can live without you.

The
only happiness
here was the echoes of
loving him, and that's gone now.
Not that it was love, anyway -
but it felt real at the time,
his cheek, my shoulder.
And it feels real now,
as I look out the
window in the
wake of his
existence.

It was slow on
the highway today,
so we chose instead to go
up and down the rocking foothills,
past decaying barns. And
there, in the country,
I thought I saw a
stellar while cathedral,
as utterly empty as the fields.

I swear, if I hear
one more radio song
about *** and drugs and parties
and *** and drugs and parties,
I will personally reach into the
wiring of the stereo and shove a
pocket bible into its mouth.

I swear, if I hear one more
radio song about *** and
drugs and parties and
*** and drugs and
parties, I will
personally reach into the
wiring of the stereo and shove a
pocket bible into its mouth.

When I was younger,
I had a strange fascination with
power lines. I'd follow their path for
hours, and knaw at the rubber until
those sparks set me on fire - because
the lines never stopped, you see?
They went on and on Forever, and
I thought that maybe I could too.

On the day I traveled to see you,
the bus smelled of cigar smoke and the
stench of perfume.
As I rode past derilict cities
and electrical towers,
I realized the
tenacity of my own
strength.

In the humid evening,
you voiced your thoughts on
modesty and
independance.
And as I listened to
songs of short skirts,
****** harassement, and the
inherent dangers of my actions,
I discovered my
hatred for that
phrase:
“Especially for girls.”

On most nights,the candle flames
flicker and dance, but tonight,
the flames stand still.

In the gathering dusk, we
stand and watch the
shadows grow.
Blood pink rays
scatter onto a sea of
dark clouds overhead as,
in the distance, a
brilliantly clear patch of
golden sky stretches out onto the horizon and illuminates the
entirety of our souls.

Hand in hand,
we fill what is gone with
warm summer evenings,
and a song, and the
dark outlines of
far away homes.

Summer was a sunset of
fiery oranges and pinks that
demanded to be seen.

A cascade of sexist phisophical texts was
the only constant admist
internship talks, a
wavering appetite for
electronic poetry, and the sight of
distant fireworks through a
tinted bus window.

In between the screaming pain in
six dozen muscle fibers,
I entertained a
whirlwind of friends from
elementary, middle, and high school with café talks and bar trivia, and returned home, alone in the
early hours of the new day,
to dictate fervent writings onto a
screen of shatted glass.

I took off your shirt, and the
golden chain around your neck that
bore the mark of Christ.

I
It’s four in the morning;
I’m eighteen years old -
I’m wondering what it is to love.
I spend half my days
devouring Aristotle, and
the other half in your arms.

II
The tremor of your laughter;
You rest your head
against my shoulder -
My heart goes "oh" -
and flutters.

III
It’s warm under the covers;
a movie plays as you
trace your fingers
across my skin.

IV
Three nights ago, we danced in a matching dress and tie to a
song I can’t remember because I was distracted by your
dimly-lit face, an
inch away from mine, and your
lips, and the nervous, excited feeling
welling up inside my chest.

V
It’s four in the morning;
I’m eighteen years old -
I love you.

You dozed off next to me last evening,
and I gazed with wonder at a face
so often marked by the weight of
twenty years of sadness and abuse -
a face that, in that moment, held
a slight smile resting beneath
fluttering whisps of pastel-brown eyelashes curling up toward
frosted windows hidden by
blinds drawn close to
shut out the
eyes of a
world
that, in that moment,
was not mine, because
my world was there in that
quiet room, amongst the
continuous hum of a radiator and the
rise and fall of a fragile chest
I promised to protect.