but i am in good hands here, so how could i stray from the feeling? i wrote between a brick wall and metal bars and i will hear it in every eulogy of what if’s. but what if that’s what keeps me safe? happy? warm? what if i stopped imagining a place where im not, stop living in the space between me and what could be. what if the matter between you and i is thicker than the matter between me and outside?

i started doing this crazy thing where i imagine all the animals in little weddings. i see mice marry giraffes, and i laugh the whole ceremony. one time i even thought about a crocodile and bunny rabbit, that love seemed so docile. i can’t tell if it’s a neurological concern or an ailment of bitter soul, but i can’t picture the raven and the donkey making their way to everlasting euphoria together. and maybe that’s the thing i’ve been missing for so long.

i miss you. i see your face in every copy of Walden and episode of the twilight zone. if i sacrificed a million children from the turnstile line, them little buggers, then maybe, just maybe i could imagine you would find a way to make the raven and the donkey work with elegance and docility, just like the croc and bunny. you always could.

it’s purple and blue mostly, when they go.

this is who i am this i what i am. i am a memoir written in marks and tatters and tears, in my skin and my clothes and my heart and my mind. i am a living sculpture of everyone who’s crossed my way. my code is unbreakable because i cannot reverse engineer my mind close enough to bring out these parts of the people who have been here. i am marked. i am kind. i am hateful. i am angry. i am calm. i am never going to be able to forget everything that has been here, but i will never fold back on myself.

this is who i am.

i have a recurring dream where im on a swing set and i reach up to the sky and your hand pulls me off of the seat and into some sort of paradise, where you love me again in that little green sundress you used to wear. in this world you kiss me in the morning and tell me the things that you’ll never whisper in my ear. here the grass tickles my knees and we dance in a world of twisted trees that allow only the littlest cues of light to dance across your face. sometimes you turn just right and the light melts your iris into a little pool that i’ve been dreaming of diving into for so long. you sneak your fragile fingers under the lacey straps adorning your shoulders and slip it down, then the other side, hypnotically holding your gaze against mine. you’re intimidatingly gentle in every calculated movement, waiting for my eyes to wander down your chest until the pretty little dress disappears into a pretty little heap, hidden between tall blades of the field. you run to the water unwavering in your belief that i will follow because i always follow you. how could i not? the water remains still when you dive in, unbothered by the presence of such ethereal energy. when you’re not coming up for air suddenly i can’t breathe and the pressure of the water’s embrace closes in around me until i see you, bubbling from the mouth with little laughs. wait, now let me explain that these little underwater chuckles propagate in my mind after i wake up in the morning.