We had something special. I mean, that’s what they all say in the beginning. You spend so much time building up a city, sit on a bench and realize, “well, ****, the lights are blinding.” And that’s what happens. People spend so much time creating what they think they want. and when they’re stuck with it, they close their eyes the entire time in disappointment. Here we are, sitting on a park bench wishing we lived somewhere in the country where we could actually see the sky, touch it, taste it.

We wanted more, but we stayed quiet. Mostly we wanted different, but instead, we started apologizing. You apologized for everything under the sun. The way you clicked your gum when you were bored, how you talked to yourself when you were stressed, the way you walked further ahead than me. You were hurrying ahead of me and I never understood where you were trying to go, but I knew it was away from here. I wanted to say something, anything, to break up the monotony of the silence that enveloped us. But I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to argue, just scream.

“I want to go home.” You finally said one evening. “I hate these **** lights and I can’t sleep knowing the city is awake.” I wanted remind you that you had insomnia, that if we lived in the country and the world fell asleep as we laid our heads on our pillows, you’d still never be able to sleep. You’d probably say the silence was too loud. I could never win with you.

We created something so electric, so terrifying and you were closing your eyes through it all. “If I can’t see her, she can’t see me.” Right? Not. I saw you, I witnessed your every move. But, I stayed quiet. I let you pack your things into boxes without question. I let you fall asleep on the couch for weeks. “I just can’t sleep. You breathe too loud.” You’d say. I felt a scream inside of me. Insomnia. You had insomnia. And of course I was breathing loudly, I was dreaming of drowning. And you were the ocean. That’s how it started feeling from then on.

I wondered where home was for you? With your parents? Where they could tell you about all the wonderful things you could’ve done? I knew that wasn’t it, but I also knew home wasn’t here either. In this city with a thousand stories. In this city that never sleeps. In this city where things are always happening. I began wondering what I didn’t know about you, but I began wondering, mostly, what I didn’t want to know. How when you can’t sleep, you sigh and toss and turn. Toss. Turn. Sigh. Turn. Toss. Sigh. Sigh again.

I sat on a park bench. Alone this time. Staring at the billboards, I closed my eyes and gulped. I tried to forget the awful color of the boxes that surrounded our my home. I tried not to think about how you forgot to say goodbye. I wondered what you saw when you closed your eyes? Because I saw lights. And I smiled. Because you hated the lights here, I began to love them. I began to love crowds in small rooms just out of spite. I started opening my eyes, asking questions, speaking out when I agreed with something, speaking up especially when I didn’t.

Insomnia wasn’t contagious but I think you gave me every symptom. My doctor told me to lay back on the coffee and maybe take NyQuill if it got worse. How was I supposed to pinpoint when I would miss you, though? I couldn’t. I reached for the phone before I could find the NyQuill, dialed your number. Like riding a bike, it’s something you don’t forget. I winced as it rang, I shuddered when you answered. I had so much to say, I had rehearsed this.

“Hello?” I felt my bones realign into the way they were when we fell in love. Perfect form to fit beside you in bed without disturbing you. Perfect form to hold your hand without getting too close. A perfect structure to love you without saying much of anything. I gulped. I wasn’t at a loss for words, words were at a loss for me. I reminded myself this. I wasn’t at a loss for you, you were at a loss for me.
“Hello? Who is this?” “I don’t think either of us have an idea.” When someone is quiet with you, you begin to memorize their voice. You didn’t have to love me to know what my voice sounded like. You had to love me in order to listen to me. There’s a difference. You sighed, “Oh, you” There was a sigh on the end of the line and I thought about the way you’d do this when you couldn’t sleep. Toss. Turn. Sigh.

I hated it like you hated the bright lights and the city.

“If you don't need anything, then stop bothering me.” I shivered at the harshness of your voice. And sighed myself. I started from the beginning, in screams that echoed throughout my home. I went on and on and on and on and on about everything I had ever suppressed until I heard the dullness of a dial tone mimicking me. I pressed end.

That’s when everything went quiet.

You hated noisy, crowded rooms, the city, the bright lights. Now me. You had it all wrong though.

Because here I am in the middle of the city that never sleeps staring at the nights and listening to the voices around me. I wanted to hear everyones story, but all I could hear was your voice telling me to stop bothering you. Your harsh tone, the way it cut through the silence of your small home in the country. I bet you can’t sleep there either. I bet you blame it on the crickets being too loud or the moon being too bright. I was drowning and you were sighing over and over again as if to say, “Great, another mess to clean up.”

Just so you know, you have insomnia. Just so you know, I can swim. Just so you know, there’s a difference between listening and hearing. We choose what we hear. Just so you know, there’s a difference between looking and seeing. You can choose what you see. You can’t keep your eyes shut for months and expect them to be accustomed to the bright lights when you decide to open them.

it's been a while, so i thought to get back in the swing of things, i'd post a poem i wrote a few months back. enjoy.*

“some people, most people actually, die before they die. and the death of the mind is so much greater than the death of the body,” my therapist tells me,
his frown barely hidden behind his beard, his brows furrowed and forehead thick with sweat.
i sink into the soft leather couch, hoping the fabric will swallow me whole.
“you need to accept the fact that he is gone.”
so much of my spirit has been torn down.
yesterday, i had a panic attack in the supermarket because my mom picked up a box of cheerios, i was told to avoid two-lane freeways because it would be “too easy,” and i had to run to the bathroom to keep from collapsing because someone was wearing his cologne.
“in order to be happy, you need to let go,” my therapist tells me. i have done everything i can, spent countless hours purging my memory from anything having to do with him.
but i can’t breathe and small parts of me keep seeing him in flashes;
in the wildflowers that grow in the field next to my house, a cloud of smoke out the car window, in clouds and sunsets and the pages of every book i read.
these are the parts of me that don’t want to let go.
but i’m getting there. i am a warrior, i have battled my toughest opponent for years and it will always be myself.
and today, i woke up early, poured myself a cup of coffee, and watched the sun rise.
today, i learned in health class that the femur is the strongest part of the human body. but it’s not. it’s the heart.
see, mine has been broken; it’s been shattered, ripped, torn to pieces, and thrown to the floor like a plate of glass in a fit of rage.
and still, it manages to beat 100,000 times a day and pump 1.3 gallons of blood a minute through this tired body.
i learned that something is always fighting for me, even if it’s only my heart.
i learned that letting go is not necessarily a bad thing.
“but i also think that when we die a part of our soul sticks around those we love. so if you think about it, he is still with you,” my therapist tells me.
i think that’s beautiful.
i can breathe easier.

How do I say
Jesus Christ you've changed
without seeming like I don't like who you've become
because I miss the old you
I miss the jokes the old you told
I miss the way you didn't hold my hand unless I held yours first
I miss the nights when you were honest
I miss you always knowing when something was wrong
but lately you only make jokes at other people's expense
you grab my waist too hard
it always seems like you're trying to cover something up
you never ask me if I'm upset
which I'm almost happy about because you're normally the reason
you never come see me anymore and I'm wondering why that is
because I'm not sure if you remember when you said you loved me but I do
and I'm not sure if you still do but I thought I did for a while
until you disappeared and I think you left the old you in rehab
you've started drinking again
do you remember when you said it made you sad when I drank because I do
that's the reason I stopped
but now that you've picked up the bottle so have I
and our fingers are almost meeting in the middle
I'm scared to let you know how close I am to you
because I think you might rip it out of my hands and let it shatter at my feet
then leave me to pick up the pieces.

I love him. I've loved him since the time he tied my left skate in March 2013. And it's a love that aches and hurts and explodes. But it's also a love that sings and twirls and laughs for no reason. It's a love that has you crying in the bathroom on a Saturday night but its also a love that has you dancing in the shower on a Monday morning. It's a love that's left me with cramped fingers, dry ink pens and full notebooks. It's a love makes me feel like a thunderstorm. It's a love that makes me feel like a sunset. He's not a home, he's a person. A wonderful one. And sometimes people say things like, "why would you forgive him," or, "why don't you just let go." And I smile. I used to get mad but out of all the types of love this is, it's also a love that's flexible. It's not a love that waits or chases but a loves that's there. It's a love that shares shoulders and stories. If I've learned anything about loving you it has been that if I cannot love you as a lover, I will love you as friend. I will love you messy handwriting, always asleep first, bad haircuts and all. Our love is flexible. Our love is patient. Our love is what happens when you rub your eyes. It's a love that bruises and bleeds and scabs and heals. It's a love that asks, "how was your day?" And would wait patiently forever for your reply. How was your day?

I fell in love with a boy by the bayside whose mouth tasted like sour apples in a way i never thought so beautiful. And I'm sorry it was never you, you always tasted bitter and burned. But there's something you need to understand,that my existence has wracking side effects and scars on my skin are only a classroom of pain. Your tears always found a way in, and leaked onto my heart, playing a sad song about wishing wells and shooting stars and formed words on my tongue like four leaf clovers. And you still haven't apologized for emptying my lake of happiness and replacing it with rocks of sadness and filling my pockets with pebbles. A man once told me that anyone good for me would never hurt me. And i suddenly forgot that, when your eyes turned to icy corridors and your hands, tightened leather. I only wanted to melt away the emptiness in your irises and break away from the distraught grip. But didn't anyone ever tell you can't just set thing on fire because you like to watch ash float in the wind? You were always so wreckless. With my bleeding heart in your hands all you could mutter was, "I made a mess." All you could do was walk away with clenched fists leaving me on the ground trying to pick up shards of glass, ribbons of tears, and pieces of the moon; essentially you left me to salvage the pieces of myself. The truth is, you left me there in the dark. And i haven't emerged.

words. offered last-minute from thin-air and handed off heavy-hearted. words. nights spent sleepless and throats filled with sand & secrets and fingernails blackened by scratching away at the excess and unnecessary. words. all they do is **** me off because i can't use them right and i find myself drowning in recycled metaphors and romanticized abstract thoughts that have been regurgitated from a hundred different mouths and audaciously labeled as poetry. but i am not a poet, at least not a good one, in fact i can't stand most of my writing but i still try. because words, are the only way i can get the myriad of ideas inside my head to make some kind of sense but they're hardly worth a dollar so that's probably why i'm always broke. words. i learned to read them at five and i thought that was impressive but nowadays children half that age are already doing that, so i guess i'm not that special. but words, at times my only friend and often my greatest enemy, have the power to reduce crowds of thousands to tears and according to the book on my father's bedside table they once parted a sea. words can change a world. but they can be weapons of unfathomable destruction. it was words, that made me think i was ugly. words i longed to hear but never did drove me to starve for affirmation from the opposite ***. words on magazines told me what i needed to be and told me nobody would want me if i didn't comply. so it was words that made me stop eating, but not for long, because i am lucky enough that my love of food overpowers the hatred i have for my body. words made me tear my skin to shreds in the still of the night because they somehow managed to crawl beneath it without ever having actually entered in through my ears. words can either give life or they can take it. words are sticks and heavy stones and swords and we're taught that they can't break your bones but tell that to the first generation to have anti-bullying laws enacted because of nooses around necks and bullets through brains and blades on wrists all caused by words. so i urge you to craft your words with care and let them be like summer breezes upon the ears you speak them to. let your words be bandaids and hot air balloons instead of daggers and eulogies. speak like honeysuckle not wisteria. words are vines that wrap themselves around and consume whomever they have been said to. people can have memories shockingly resemblant to pachyderms so be aware that your words can live on like ghosts long after you thought they would have died. words are oceans upon which people can either float or sink below, and you are the decider.

- m.f.

He is everything I remember
and everything I had once tried to forget
rumbling engine and tires on the wet street.
I am shoes in the grass, kicking leaves
walking through cold drizzle and gasping wind, dark sky on a moonless night.

He is the blue pickup truck with the window down
his face lit by a cigarette drag,
something I’ve seen a thousand times before
handsome face warmed by the orange glow.
I settle into my spot beside him as stagnant cigarette film settles on me
silently clinging to my clothes and swirling into my hair.

Our fingers brush as he hands me that glass pipe
smoke wisps twirl out of our lips and mingle together
rushing out of the doors into the night sky as we walk together under it,
now we’re inside and he is the touch I’ve been anticipating.

The last thing I see is brown eyes and I feel
his kiss bristling my face, consuming me like we will never experience this again.
He is blonde hair and a brown beard, he is strong, he is tall. He is everything I wanted.

I am satisfied, carefree, if only for a moment.
Studying the lines of his face, how they have changed, the startling
way he is his grandfather’s face, showing through those dark eyes.
When he leaves, he is a kiss that dissipates
with the sound of the engine turning down the block.

I am alone. The mirror displays a flushed, smiling face
with tones of pink and peach, silently studying the details.
I see my mother and grandmother in my own reflection
I see their age making way down my skin.
Marbled green eyes, dark in color,
mine yellow flecked.
my mother’s mixed aqua.
my grandmother’s deep green.

My pulse rushes with the realization that it goes so fast
My eyes fill with tears as I imagine looking into the eyes my own children and theirs
I picture those deep green tones reminding me of generations past
I breathe in realizing what I’ve seen and what I feel I need.
I am the details and complexity of life, one of many heirs.                                           {360 words}

Gasping, whispering, teasing wind
billowing my clothes, messing my hair.
Calm and still before the world is
deafened by the groaning cries of incoming
thunder rolling across the sky.

We watch the storm blow in
wind scattering angry tear drops to the ground
from rich purple clouds crowding the horizon.
I run one step behind you
dodging hail that pelts the soft earth.

By the time we reach shelter
my hair is slicked down, stuck to my skin.
Safe inside from the ever stronger wind
in dim light we wait for our clothes to dry
I’m wishing you would stay the night.

Rattling windows sing in chorus
with my clattering bones
and your deep, soothing voice.
Wind shakes the stucco house
your steady breath becomes my lullaby.

The morning comes with dew
bright light touching down from the sky.
Still steaming ground smells of petrichor
strewn with branches
the only hint of last night’s wind.

Clear blue skies in morning light
hide the storm that was so angry last night
stillness concealing violent winds.

{177 words}