I wonder about this woman inside me, who gazes out,
Unimpressed.
I call myself a girl,
But there is no mistaking her for one.
Somewhere inside me, she is always quietly keeping tabs.
Watching, learning, predicting.
And see, she doesn't care.
Not at all.
While I am tossed to and fro in a maelstrom of tangled feelings,
She sits calm, blasé.
She has all the artful poise
Of an old time movie actress taking a drag on her cigarette in its holder
And letting her exquisite face remain aloof.
Every heartbreak that wrecks me
Barely merits a glance from her,
And I wonder what she is here for.
I really do.
See, love, I adore you
And many others I adore far more
But this woman, this cold eyed graceful woman
With slender wrists
And a penchant for raising only one eyebrow
In response to even the most shocking blow,
She couldn't care less about
Any of you.
I don't know why she is here, I truly don't.
But I do know this-
I rather crave, sometimes, the stillness in her heart.
There is a calm there that is
Unflappable
Unshakable
Unwavering.
Yes, I will lose you,
And so what?
Through her eyes people are only
Things to be lost.
Things that will fade out,
Wear out,
Get out
While they can,
And it matters not.
It is a delicate shrug
And nothing more.
The world is a yawn to her
Where it is a stab wound to me
And I admire her apathy
Almost as much as I fear it.

"They combined some things that used to be separate
and act like they invented some new hot ****!
I mean, those things would have been combined before.
They were the same concepts applied separately
rather than all as one unit,
but that was only because
we hadn't yet developed the capacity
for that sort of functional unification.

And, now, they're not even any better;
they're just bigger and more grandiose!"

Slot machines serenade us with a C major chord;
no wonder we're so primally enticed
to shake the hand of these harmonious bandits.

At five am this morning
I closed my door, quiet and slow, and
Crept out into the blackness.
It was silent.
Dead silent.
The stoplights were throwing velvety pools of light on the street
And I was drawn to the center of it
I placed my strides between the two yellow lines
And I started walking.
I just went.
I can't say whether five minutes passed, or ten, or twenty,
But eventually I left the road and doubled back
To the little bridge where you first kissed me.
And I sat there in the dark
With my legs dangling over a galaxy of reflected stars
Meteors with tails of mirrored streetlight,
Gold and shimmering,
A shadow cut-out of a person set in a silhouette of black water against a splash of light.
I lay my cheek on the cold metal of the rail,
And let it all seep into me-
The night, the cold, the glow of the stars.
My fingers brushed a little husk at the base of it
And I recognized the flower I'd placed there
Last time I'd walked across that bridge.
I'd been late. Late by a lot. Hurrying.
Rushing.
And I thought, Mikaila you are stupid for stopping to pick this flower.
But I did it anyway.
I always do it.
Every single time I walk over that bridge,
No matter who with,
I pick a flower
And set it at the base of that railing
In the spot where you kissed me.
I never give any explanation.
I just put one there, every time.
The tiny delicate thing crumbled at my touch
And the dust was taken by the wind across the shining water.
There I stayed for a long, long time,
And eventually I lay back and looked up at the stars.
There is a very bright one out this month,
A planet, somebody told me.
It was directly above me, glowing with cold, clear light,
And I told it
That I love you
And just then one of the tiny stars right by it
Dove across the universe
And landed in the lake at my feet.