She
had a feeling
in her gut
like punch
drunk
love
to the lights
that had bathed her
as a child.

She
had a notion
that tides
were turning
spinning round
dizzy with creation
but also
busy with
the death
of her faith.

She
was just Observer
to her fate
today
widdling away
with the blade
that had slain
so many before her.

She
also a warrior
also a storyteller
gave life
to those ideas
which she felt
surely
could keep her warmer.

She
also a psychic
also aware
of the manifestations
we bury below
we bare them below
the surface
she
found peace in
the darkness
that lay
within.

you said "i can show you four days in which you died." i replied, "i didn't know you were watching." you sat down and put your face in your hands, i stood up and walked out.

some days you follow me with that camera of yours. i play the part; i look at the sky, i pigeon-toe my feet to look trendy for your lens. but i'm sick of swallowing your gray muck.

i need a change. i need out. those four days in which you say i died were the only days i've felt alive.

i will miss the vase in which you always place flowers. the blue and orange ones were my favorite. i told you that once, but you were too busy with your threads, knitting and knitting yourself away from me.

i'll also miss your hand, it used to feel so warm on my stomach. lately, though, lately, it's all so hazy. i can't remember the last time i really saw you.

so continue on, don't pause for me. in an hour i will be merely a stream of thought of a life you'd like to live. you never did have the guts to leave this place. i'm glad i do.

so hold on to your camera and the trendy things you crave.

i'm headed to a place where ideas, theories, concepts thrive, where the mysteries of life reign hard, and the petty place we lived is no more to me.

Grounded, because my head is not always in the clouds
Solid, because you can't always see straight through my hide
Broken, in just a couple places because glue always comes at least a little undone
But healthy, because I am aware, aware aware

Startled, because I can't prepare for all your quakes
Puzzled, because I can't absolve all your mistakes
Singled out, as I was in all my worst nightmares
And harmful, because like Iron Man I do not know my own strength

Crippled, because I cannot look away from you
Stifled, because you take away from everything in me
But magical, because I am a princess in a big pumpkin
And healthy, because I am okay with everything.

you are
                                 you are like a midnight breeze
                                 calming,
                                 threatening,

you calm me with your cold,
                                     black air
                                     bleak air

that seeps straight through

                                  with a false hope, of what this could mean to me.







i am
                               i am but a thistle on this very large tree
                               waiting for my chance to grow and i

i can't seem to find a way
to mean anything to
                                 a n y b o d y

                               won't you stay awhile?
                                                       just awhile.





we
                              together we

we could grow and rule this world
                              (we could     r      u      n    , you and i)

you and i,              and never stop

                              and never stop never stop never stop never stop never stop

                                                                                                                                           STOP.


until we find
                   that place where time stops
                                                              that place where
                                                                                          l o v e
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          d r o p s
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          d o w n
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          .
                                                                                           i n t o
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          .
                                                                                          f o r e v e r.




                                                                                                                              

                                                                                               (safe)
                                                                                          




        







this
this won't be

this won't be
                    (the end)



the sun always shines right after it's darkest and i
                                                                               i believe



i believe we will spin this yarn into something more      
              
                                              

and
we will

           c . r . e . a . t . e

   &nbsp

and i can feel you in my nerves and i can see you in my skin and i can't look away from your

your soul is so promising just a hatchling of a chicken i am with my head cut off running loose in the barnyard

barnyard lazy days are what i had and then i saw you and colors everywhere sprockets and gadgets and loose-runnings and shoes

shoes without feet only energy only anticipation exhilaration in our eyes looking feeling touching

touching toes with no shoes on cold toe warm toe is a good sensation a broadening horizon a war zone in my belly

my belly rises and falls in time with yours the sun is up and stars are hiding we slept soundly fingers crossed between the others and then we knew it was

it was everything we read about from old men's minds in starched collars with big dollars who dreamt these things couldn't have them sat in foyers with long pipes smoke filling lungs tears filling eyes

tears filling eyes because i can feel you and

and i can feel you in my nerves and i can see you in my skin and i can't look away from your soul.

You carry your life on your shoulders; a swing in a park in a city, with a lonely, shadowy, ghost of you sitting so delicately. As people pass you, they stop and look, and words come to their minds such as "passion" and "sorrow," "broken benches," "spilled dreams" and they couldn't even tell you why.

You wear your heart safety-pinned to your sleeve; a grave declaration that you are not your own person. Someone has marked you, taken something without asking; this you show everyone, not meaning to, in hopes of finding a semblance of relatability. Was it normal, what happened to you? Is this a dark fog everyone lives in? You hope not.

You have an everpresent effervescence of the wrong kind. It's a nervous habit, a shuffling of the feet and a glance to the sky. It's the reincarnation of life before that day, with the tender rips of who you are now. One can only paint over paint so much; mix the colors, they will all become grey.

You've a vague sense of relief when you look around and see no one. It's a talisman, a testimony to your independence, and your dependence on lots of human-free air. It's the writing on your arm, words you shan't forget, words like delicate innocence shame tragedy naivete melody sorrow blame identity apology and the biggest, boldest of all heartbeat.

It's a short cry from here to insanity and you remind yourself that your heart beats in pride, in admonition to the evil. "I am alive. You couldn't **** me. You won't **** me. I have a heartbeat."

I have a heartbeat. I have a heartbeat. I have a heartbeat. And the little ******* the swing smiles to the sky, a premonition of her future, a confirmation of her strength.

you were, you could have been, something grea--
something grey.

the knight -- no, the night, so black and shining, oh the knight,
never even knew what was coming --

what was coming undone -- wait, what was coming --

coming underneath the hide -
underneath your tide.




whisps and whirls, oh the world couldn't help you

couldn't tell you how to see --

oh the world couldn't tell you how to seem okay.

whisps and whirls, oh the world couldn't tell you
how not to seem so grey.

there's a breeze in here.


perhaps it's that opportunity
that you just missed
that just whisked by you
as you were too busy studying
those little doubt plants rooted in your soil.


perhaps it was your future
rushing by you
in an attempt to avoid you
because you have this wonderful way
of ruining things
and it knows it could be so great.


perhaps it was the nightmare
that was waiting for you tonight
that changed its mind
because even nightmares know
we all deserve second chances.

Feet. Gnarled, scabbed and bent at the bone. Where‘s the beauty? I look at my toenails, my arms around my knees, as tears roll down and hit the sidewalk. The splash is exciting, and a thousand images come to mind.

I stand as I take in everything around me, savoring each breath, watching the colors enter my mouth.

The wind. It’s colorful here. Rolling rainbows of blues and greens and reds caress the buildings around me. It’s astounding when it blows.

Last week, the sun exploded into a thousand little ***** of light and they float around me now, serene and inert. Only when I walk do those in my path slowly twirl out of my way.

Slowly, slowly. As if they are moving through gelatin, as if they are slightly begrudged that I‘m counteracting their inertia.

I know that this is beauty. It is beauty that is this place. I would give up every element comprising my being to have this beauty with me when I leave, but I know I can’t overstay my welcome.

I place my foot onto a step behind me and I walk up. There is a balcony above me where I bring my camera. I sit on this ledge and I let my feet hang over and I try to capture everything this beauty is.

But it can’t be done. I have tried so many times to take this place, to put it in my pocket. But it can’t be done. No matter how many times I try, or how many ways I turn my camera, I can’t capture it.

I set the camera down after a couple minutes and I look to my left. A little ball of sun is floating beside my head. I stick a finger out to poke it and, as if by a magnetic field, it slowly pushes itself back when I am but a mere inch away. I try again, and fail. I put both hands out, cupping, as if to net it. I miss, and we play this game for a while.

But the suspense goes nowhere, and the ball of sun finally anticlimactically slips a few feet away. Disappointed, I stand up and walk slowly down the steps, my hand on the edge of the wall next to me.

The suns begin to lose their brightness, and I know it is time for me to go. I’m almost sad, knowing that I won’t see beauty like this until the next time I am able to return here.

Almost. This place is so great, so majestic, I can’t help but leave with a sense of pride, knowing I am privileged enough to come here.

With a final look back, I take in the glow of the setting ***** of sun against the background of the wind. I hesitate at the bridge, to put my hair back up into a ponytail. I slip back into my sneakers and I put on my lip gloss. I’m ready to go back to the side of the world from which I came.

I have to catch my breath as I prepare myself for the world I’m returning to. I breathe in deeply, and I look down, at my feet. Gnarled, scabbed, and bent at the bone. Where’s the beauty?

I take a reluctant, mournful step onto the bridge

Today I wrote to you. I haven’t seen you in seven months and sixteen days, as of 10 AM this morning. Only two weeks left. It seems unreal… It also seems that to write to you is all I have. So this morning I sat at my desk, and I opened my mind to all the things I could have said to you, but never thought to.

Do you remember the first day we met? It was in the café on Franklin Blvd. You were wearing your grey Fedora, a Hurley shirt, and those burnt sienna penny loafers we’d make so much fun of later.

I was at the table by the window, and I couldn’t help but notice you. Three of your fingernails were painted yellow, and you wore a bunch of beaded hemp bracelets on your right wrist. They looked Bohemian to me, but one day you explained the difference in that and Jamaican. You were singing a little tune while waiting in line. Later, you’d call it your “little ditty,” and you’d sing it all the time. You always said things like that, & I always fell in love with you more.

You ordered a vanilla cappuccino and a plain English muffin. I looked down at the same half-eaten muffin and cold cappuccino in front of me. I wondered why it seemed that I knew you already.

You sat down at a table a few feet away from me. You took off your penny loafers and took a handheld game of Yahtzee out of your pocket to accompany your breakfast. I was perplexed that you hadn’t noticed me staring yet.

Ah, there it was. You looked over at me. You must have sensed me by then. Immediately you smiled that half-smile you would always do, a mix between a condescending smirk and a boyishly cute pride. It was altogether endearing. You raised your eyebrows and nodded, as if we’d known each other for years. I admired your charmingly playful introduction. I would soon call you sweet pea.

………………

It was eight months ago today that you told me you were leaving. Your large brown eyes were full of promise and sorrow. I dropped my half-full coffee mug, and it spilled all over the carpet. The cat ran to lick it up, and was disappointed when the taste was utterly bitter. In other circumstances, I would have laughed and pointed it out to you, and we’d admire the cat’s zealous naïveté.

However, the cat had but a split-second of my stolid attention before my eyes met yours again, and I felt paralyzed. I asked what you meant, and you repeated yourself.

You told me of Jacob and all he meant to you. I cried when you told me how God and all his goodness took a sixteen year-old boy and his giant heart away from this world, away from his brother. You also told me how you’d avoided him for over three years before his death.

I was in disbelief that you’d never told me of him. You just looked down and said you’d had no room in your selfish green world for his coal-black sickness. Then you told me of his letter before he passed, asking one thing from each person he cared about. To help the world in a way they never would have done before, to somehow leave a legacy in his name.

My stomach felt sick. My baked-apple oatmeal felt at the tip of my tongue. How could this be happening to you? I instantaneously let go of any would-be grudge against you for being kept from the cruelly and sickeningly beautiful reality attacking your heart.

For I could see in your eyes that you were tearing your soul to shreds. You explained how in your peaceful aura had been a mask, a denial of the sickness slowly claiming your brother, waiting it out. For he couldn’t die. He would simply be better one day, and you were waiting for that. But, he did die. And you already knew what your mission would be.

You were leaving in two weeks from that day. You were flying to Africa with the church your brother had been devoted to since the diagnosis four years before this day. You’d spend eight months with the church members in Africa, working with children in a third-world country. Anything you donated would be in the name of Jacob Meyers.

You had talked about this with your family, and they agreed it would please Jacob and the legacy he had asked for. I at once stated that I was going too. My belittled heart broke cleanly in two when you told me how you had to go alone, that Jacob wanted a noble mission.

He had explained that he wanted someone to do selfless work in his name. How in order to give truly, you must give all. I knew you felt that you had to give the largest part, for you’d been the most selfish to avoid him. I let you keep your dignity and, broken, I accepted what you were doing. If anything, I loved you so much more for it.

Sorrowfully and dutifully we packed bags to attend his funeral. I never told you this, but I read four novels on sibling death. I wanted to take your hand in mine and feel what you were going to feel when you saw him laying there.

………………

In two weeks I will see you again. I will travel to the airport and pick you up and time will move once again. I often wonder how spectacularly, or marginally, you will have changed.

I have your loafers, your fedora, and your faded Hurley shirt ready to wear to the café where we met when you come back.




To my faux Jamaican sweet pea,
I miss you.

You held my hand and showed me all the pictures in the sky
& told me of all the days you'd spent out here
I laughed and told you that I didn't need it, didn't need any of it

The day you left I realized I'd been wrong, so utterly wrong
I began looking at the pictures in the sky each night
& spending all my days out here

I wonder if where you are the sky pictures are better
Do they make you feel the things that I couldn't?
Maybe one day I'll be big enough to venture out there to where you are

But for now, I'll stay here
& look at the sky-pictures that used to be enough for you
& remain unchanged, unwavering, unwilling to let you in.

You called yourself a man, swinging on the lion with your frostbitten breath
But I anulled what you said, when I saw that the lion was but a mule, and the frostbite just the smoke from your cigarette

You said you hunted demons in the chasm going down, hunted demons from Hell in the chasm going down
But I saw you selling her things in the pawn shop down on East
Are the demons merely what her illness represents to you?

You whispered in my head that you could save me from this ****** bath
And take away the faucet that I want
But it’s coming back, another promise that you broke
Are those ashes of surprise blanketing the cancer that you smoke?
Remove your shoes at the door, leave her eulogy lying on the dusty kitchen floor

Go ahead and board the escalator; take your musics with you
You are not my savior, not the bargain that I asked for
Just a martyr for whatever cause you decide to **** today

My world. What is the definition of "my world?" Is it the earth as a Whole? Or is it simply my perception of the earth...as a Hole. I'm here to stumble my way through these observations and make sense of my surroundings; seeing as You are (presumedly) on the same Earth as I am, I can only give you my account as the earth as I See it, and let you make the Comparisons as according. Perhaps we shall See the same earth in this, if this tale has fallen into the hands of a "like Mind." If it hasn't, well...then you can judge this all for yourself; an entirely new perception.

If you are reading this in hopes of a love Story, on the off-chance of finding solace for whatever Mistakes you have made, or of finding hope in a happy Ending made of whatever Wrongs have been done upon you, then I must let you Know in advance, this isn't any of that. This is a Declaration of Independence; my truthful account, my soul-bearing, eyes-wide-open testimony that

This Has All Become A *******.






My story is the menial, self-congested tale of a society gone rampant.


The year is 1922, and the air is frigid with self-absorbed disgust; none but I can see this. To the rest, We of 1922 are Nothing but Jubilee.

If you are reading this, then your year is at least 1972; I pray that my Here and Now, this 1922 era of Superficiality is the shadow of your here and now. I pray that the earth you Know is the beauty that I seek, that this radiation of Filth has died and that everyone now Understands what we went through, what I'm going through.

If you don't, well...maybe this account will help.

we'll be a laugh
tickling the insides of a time when
things were much easier

we'll be a kick
to the shins of those who said
we'd never slay the demons we run from

we'll never change
always holding onto the things we love
and looking forward to the things to come
arms spread wide from the past to the future
our navel suspended in the here and the now

you'll be the sun
radiating with the joy
of a thousand beating hearts
and circling the earth, selflessly moving
spreading yourself so thin to help

i'll be the breeze
a catalyst for the lazy season,
never solid, never sure
running with you
to escape the dark you chase
as i'll shout "nevermore" and it all blows away

we'll never change
always holding onto the things we love
and looking forward to the things to come
arms spread wide from the past to the future
our navel suspended in the here and the now

and you'll take my hand
and you'll take my hand
and you'll take my hand

we'll never change
always holding onto the things we love
and looking forward to the things to come
arms spread wide from the past to the future
our navel suspended in the here and the now

and we'll be the cry
of a new life born

and we'll be the years
growing old by the shore

and we'll be the soil
tossed over our bones

oh we'll never leave, never leave, never leave it alone

He was a Breathtaker. A royal, high-class, naturally-born, take-it-or-leave-it Breathtaker. I had never seen one before in real life, only heard about them in the tales of a girl's childhood.

The first day he took my Breath was in a parking lot. He stood there alone in the parking lot, with his sparklers in hand, and wrote words in the air for no one but himself to see. He hummed while he wrote, haphazardly opening his mouth slightly, in a never-ending melody.

Later, I found out that the words he wrote in the air would later be turned into music, beautiful songs that could lift your feet off the ground and give your soul the wings to fly. But this first night, I knew nothing of the breathtaker's ability to create such beauty.

The lit end of the sparkler seemed to be a metaphor for the Breathtaker's aura. Shining, energetic, with a tendency to mezmerize. One didn't want to stop watching his mind at work.

So I sat there in the grass and watched him. Looking at the swift motion of his arms, I became entranced by the passion with which he worked. So quickly, I couldn't even pick up much of what he was writing. One could easily tell, however, that he wasn't going to forget a word of it.

I, however, had brought my typewriter for such an occasion. I sat there and typed words that he made me feel. The first line was "intrigue. night sky. man. electricity fingers. fizzled feelings. stranger. lips. curls. air. no breath."

And so my Breath was hardpressed to move. It entered my mouth and stopped, right below my soft palette, not wanting to enter further. My Breathing was very shallow, almost a soft hyperventilation, caught between time moving and time paused.

Solve the addiction with a curious puzzle
Cure the remedy with a gracious smile
Grace the presence of a Lord never seen
And see the sun rise by a broken man’s hand.

Snap the twig that bends the senses
Sense the dangerous game of wits
Outwit the gent who’s gummy skin
Stains the tendons, we breath from within.

Staining the tendons cost you your life.
Stain them all you want, they will bleed no less.
Do you see the logic in the ropes I bind you with?
You can’t break luck like you break those dimes.

Wake up tomorrow and face your face, not mine, not theirs, but yours.
I doubt you’ve challenged yourself to this before
Shells have protection, cheese molds with time, forks break and bend and spark
Are you hiding, or is this the mirror you throw at me, whistling through your teeth.
Do you break dimes to scratch protein from under your nails?

I make sense if you look at this not as a riddle
For it’s not, merely lines of interconnecting senseless thought.
But is it really senseless, when in our world of ‘sense’
We hardly ever make any?

Look at your tendons- you’ve stained them yellow
Patterns of the Lord like the church windows I know
Glazed over with skin, hiding the yellow
Biting the yellow in your gummy-*** skin.

She stares at the floor. She has to be dreaming. She can’t believe it actually happened. She’s in shock, a deep shock vibrating her core and numbing her skin.

She shivers, and looks up at the ceiling, where drops of blood fall into a small puddle on the clean linoleum below.
A small trickle of water seeps in from the laundry room to her left, and the clear veins of water glide around her extended foot, attracted to her self-loathing tension. The water knows what she’s done, knows it can’t fix her and wants to be a part of this torture in her soul.

She kicks the water away, futilely and desperately. This is the most movement she’s taken since she came downstairs, and it is the opening of the reservoir of tears within her. She sobs, huge racking sobs that convulse every fiber of her being.

She hates herself. She hates herself. She takes her fist, and she punches. Anywhere and everywhere she can hit. Her legs, her neck, her stomach, her chest. Anything she can do to herself to make herself feel, to make herself hurt. She needs to be punished.

She knows that she deserves to die, but she isn’t sure if she has the guts or selfish selflessness to do it. The gun lays on the tile across the room, it’s barrel turned toward the wall in cowardice. She scoots over to it and picks it up. In her mind it burns her hand, but she holds on strong. This pain is nothing to her.

She slowly finds the strength to stand up, and squints her puffy eyes to hide herself as she walks past the mirror. She has to crawl up the steps. She didn’t realize she was so weak, but she’d looked at the clock on the way up, and she’d been sitting there bawling for over four hours.

At the top of the steps, she loses her breath. Her lithe, agile body isn’t tired, but she sees his foot, carelessly hanging out into the hallway where he fell. She can’t go on yet. She looks at the gun, still in her hand. It’s her light, her only exit sign.

She walks on, into the bedroom, stepping over his foot. She squats down beside his head and looks at his pale, sunken face. His body is already well into the process of rigor mortis, and it flushes her hopes that he’ll sit up and say, “Boo.”

Tears are streaming down her face, a hurt so intense, so overwhelming, that she is not even aware she is crying once more.

Finally, she’s done looking at him. She cannot grasp that she did this to him, and yet her hands apparently can. They put the barrel of the gun to her head, and she inhales sharply without exhaling. The cold barrel feels hot against her temple, and it slides a centimeter from her perspiration and the pressure she’s applying. Maybe if she just pushes it into her temple hard enough, it will take care of itself, and she won’t have to pull the trigger.

She lets go of all pretenses, and time seems to pause as she pulls the trigger. She drops, falling onto his body before her. Her tears roll down his stomach, the force of gravity in action.

Sick little spies in the back of my mind, lend me your ear.
Let me ****** you into leaving this place.

Allow me to introduce myself.
A phantom of a long gone time,
I have come to haunt the shadows here now.

I'd like to cleanse you of your sorrows,
separate the shelves we once painted.
You let them get dusty, grime and mold reigns.
Have you forgotten what it felt to hold my hand?

I'll leave you be when you look me in the eye,
a task not fit for a king.
But your crown is now shriveled,
my silver lining formed your second-place noose.

So just remember, remember, the sun always sets
in the place where darkness lived before.

You will be found out, you will be taken apart,
and this king's throne will be held by one more endearing.
They shant be amazed, no tears will be shed for your death.
Simply an empty shelf, a clean mind, and a satisfactory taste for disdain

In her shadow you hid and bade your time, all the while looking like something she could love.
Yet she only saw you in the dark, playing the part of something she could love.
The day she found a flashlight and struck your moths askew was the day she sent you spiraling to the ground.
Do you know, oh do you know, what you did to her?

Now you jump from window to window, seeking the shelter of the darkness when she blinks.
You’re scared of imperfection in her thoughts, yet tomorrow you’ll see you’re as imperfect as it gets.
You tricked her into thinking you could help her with it all and she saw.
She sent you scurrying back to the shadows to dissolve calm widows there.

But she’s scared you’ll worm your way back to her brain-- you’re already planting seeds of relapse there.
So she swore to someone more faithful than you that what you are will not infect her brain anymore.
She was tolerant, let you bend her backbone, now she’s rigid, standing straight as stone.
She isn’t breaking and won’t bend for you anymore.

This someone she swore on everything to will do what it takes to make sure you’re gone.
So stay away, we don’t need your discomforting stare ruining our dreams anymore.

Hello there. You seem a bit uneasy. Look around, and let me explain.

This is your funeral. I am your funeral. This is your casket. I am your casket, the black balloons, the flowers placed strategically around the room. One flowerpot per five square feet, like your brother ordered. This is the scientifically proven amount of flowers to keep grieving people at a calm level. These flowers are the happy facade behind which grief lies. These flowers are pretty deceit. I am the crying faces, begging to talk to you one last time. I am every tissue that will be picked up and disposed of by the janitors after the grievers return to their lives.

I am your death. I am your last breath, your last sentence, the cancer you battled with for the last three years of your life. I am every doctor's appointment, every shot that left you bedridden for the next two days. I am every particle of hair you watched go down the drain in the shower. I am every strange look, uncomfortable glance you received. I am all the tears shed after your diagnosis, and every benefit held in your honor. I am every sacrifice your family made to attempt a wall of happiness around your sickness.

I am the birth of your only grandson, the beautiful boy of your only beautiful girl. I am the scary morning spent in the waiting room of the hospital. I am every doubt you and your wife had about your grandson's condition. I am the condition that made him two months premature. I am his three weeks spent in an incubator, and the formula he was fed to stay alive. I am the relief your family felt when your daughter and grandson were released, both completely healthy. I am your grandson's first, second, third, fourth birthdays.

I am your retirement. I am the completion of your life's most well-known activity and purpose. I am the years you now plan on traveling and raising your future grandchildren. I am the mornings you will now spend waking up next to your wife, the woman you've been married to for thirty years now, your best friend. I am the breakfast you will make her in bed and the organizations you plan to join in all your free time. I am your old cat you will sit on your porch and pet. I am the party and the gifts you were given, and the flat, insincere Happy Retirement cards that were obligatorily sent to you by your co-workers. I am this last milestone of your life.

I am your daughter's high school graduation. I am the lip-biting your wife partook in as she walked up and shook hands with the principal. I am her boyfriend, who sat beside you two and joined in the clapping, eyes watering for the girl he loved. I am the marriage they would agree to and abide by for the rest of their lives. I am every late night she was out, every test she was nervous about. I am the teacher who called you complaining about her unorganization. I am the cat she brought home one year, promising to take care of. This cat outlived even you.

I am the loss of your virginity. I am the party you mistakenly went to, and the alcohol you mistakenly drank. I am the girl who mistakenly came into the bathroom and held your hand while you puked. I am the drug she took prior to walking in, and the bed she led you to. I am the feeling you were given in the morning, the feeling of the realization of loss versus gain.

I am the day you met your wife. I am the book section of the retail store you both were perusing. I am your heart beating quickly as she smiled, and your hand sweating in your pocket. I am the beauty you saw in her. I am the money you saved up at your after-school job and the Italian restaurant you took her to for your first date, and I am the city in Italy you took her to for your honeymoon. I am the mistakes you both made and all the hours spent awaiting forgiveness.

I am your childhood. I am your first few friends. I am the bone in your foot, broken by a nasty fall. I am the bridge you were playing on and the cast you wore for a month. I am the day you learned how to whistle and the day you learned how to read. I am every birthday party you have ever been given, and every candle you blew out. I am your first word, your first step.

I am your first breath. I am the decision your mother made to keep you. My how easily all of this could have never been.

I am all the sadness you have ever felt, and I am all the joy. And it has all led up to this day. This funeral, this event catered by a food company and paid for by the government and a savings account made for this day. I am that government you lived under, and that savings account you worked so hard for.

And as of today, I am just a memory. I am simply the memory of your life. I am simply the collection of days and days and years, and times. And now, I am gone.

You were sick, and we stole all the stars for you. Placed them in our knapsack and traveled all the way up the mountain at midnight. We let the stars out into the very tip-top of the stream, the very point of origin. At the bottom, you sat with your camera and captured the stars making there way through the stream to the very bottom. Before we left, I was sure to add a large portion of the stars back into my knapsack. I didn't want this to be the end of the stars. The picture was beautiful, breath-taking, and we put it in the largest frame we could find in the living room.

Before that, we'd stolen all the music for you. We gathered a big, mesh net, with large holes, and stood along the border of the place where songs play. As they traveled, we swept them up. The prettier the music, the bigger notes, so we caught only the most beautiful of sounds. We made a moat around your house and placed these melodies inside. When we stole the stars, I added the few from my knapsack into the moat as well. The stars sparkled and the melodies resounded and it was a place of peace.

Lastly, we found the feelings. We went to the building in which tension ebbs and flows like the aromas of sweets at the bakery. They were colored with the connotations they implied. We hand-picked the peace, the passion, the joy, the gratitude. They were green, purple, orange, and navy blue. To balance it out, we picked up red anger, black grief, and white innocence as well.

We came home to your moat and poured them in. The sight and sound was beautiful. We were finally finished. We had helped. This was going to be enough to fix you.

"Your words, linger, for about a second. They then, falter, dropping. They do not resound into space. I can't see them echoing from my window; they cast no great entrance, no chance looks from the masses, no media news coverage.

Thoughts, however, thoughts, and some rare words, spoken in the exact tone, pitch, and with precise volume, with sincerity, resound forever. Thoughts, ideas, intangible bits of matter, resounding forever and ever and ever, audible to the trained ear. Imagine! Imagine the chaos, no-- imagine the beauty, that would follow."

The man turned away then, lost in thought. She could see his wrinkled arm on the armrest of his cozy chair. She could see the dust building on his slippers. He had been in this chair, thinking this concept through, for quite some time.

She offered him a fourth cup of coffee, and he politely declined, reasoning that he didn't trust the coffee beans these days. She exhaled, trying to remember why she'd come.

"This man could be the future. He could be the breakthrough we've been looking for. Imagine the furtherment of psychology this man could bring about. The furtherment of literature, of movies, books, conversation, nothing would be the same! Of course-- he is probably just a scam. But, these things have been right before. And if there is anything this man has to say or teach us about, we will be the first to discover him."

A fire started in the baking store on Pudding Lane last night.

I stood across the street and watched the cobblestone break away, the ruddy bricks of kiln-soaked stuff crumbling at my feet. As people came and gathered round, and watched the flames rise up, I could only wonder what the bread was feeling, it’s life coming to a brittle end.

I began to doubt my mental state, for it was only bread. And yet I felt an urgent dread rising. It started at my toes. It rose up through my knees, begging to bend and spread, as if to say, “You can run, run, run. Save the bread.” It crept up through my hips, my stomach, into my arms, and up to my scalp. It was intriguing, this dread. I stood completely still, denying the temptation to ‘help the bread.’ My body wanted to panic, and it was enthralling to feel this control in my denial.

I looked up at the canvas, the canopy of the store. It was fringing and shriveling and blacking at the corners, flames licking like an acid that leaves an ashy residue. The letters of “Abruzzi Bakery” looked wrong here, like an abranchiate fish. I felt a flash of hatred for the letters themselves, the way they were shaped, and if in the possession of a knife I would have been tempted to slash every letter away. It was hate, pure and simple.

As suddenly as it had come, I looked at the letters once more and there was nothing. I felt nothing. The windows were browning at the bottom, caramelizing the glass from the heat. I thought of me, caramelized, like that glass. What if I were see-through? It was an appealing thought.

People were still crowding around, and I wondered where the men were that would save the last of the store. I looked around me and the faces of the people were contemptible, disapproving of the conflagration. I was hurt by how they shunned this phenomenon, this magnified chemical reaction that reflected in my eye and appealed to my senses. I couldn’t associate with their way of thinking, another doubt of my mental state.

I stood here, with a gathering of people, and as I looked around, I slowly began to feel as if they were the conflagration, these people with their scorning minds. They were but a fire in humanity, a fire that did nothing but kept burning and hurting. I felt an odd sense of brotherhood with the fire, and I was ashamed that people had to see it. These people did not deserve to see this act of beauty happening before them, and I wanted them to go away.

A mouse scrambled out the open door. It’s tail was ashen with a few sparks of fire still on its tail, living from the oxygen around it, but slowly fading.

I realized that it was symbolic of what humanity is. Humanity is a fire, glowing bright. But like this mouse’s tail, it had to end, and would slowly rise and fall with the mixture of oxygen it comes in contact with. I realized I wanted no part of this. I wanted to be nothing but whole, a brother of this roaring sensation in front of me.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Johnny Cash had also understood, when writing “The Ring of Fire.” Maybe he knew, he also could grasp the concept of fire and its place with humanity, and like I was starting to, wanted nothing to do with it. Him falling into the burning ring of fire was not a tragedy, but an act of righteous martyrdom.

I walked across the street, separating myself from the soon-to-be fading gathering of this sickening humanity around me. I felt the sparks of lit ash hitting my arms and began the denial of running away. The control of my denial to save myself would be hard. But I knew. I was saving myself. From everything in this world that did nothing but look down upon that which had more of a right to be here. Of that which was here before them, and that which would be here after nature’s tolerance of the abuse failed.

I was in the bakery now, in the belly of the beast that was only misunderstood, and could only be my savior now. And I understood all the doubt I’d had about my mental state. It was not impaired in comparison to others, it was heightened. I was the only one who could see what it all really meant.

I sat down in the flames and, as I felt it appropriate, began to sing “The Ring of Fire,” feeling Johnny’s spirit sitting next to me, singing along.