It all starts to get a little heavy the longer you hold it.
I'd like to set some things down, free my hands.
Little by little.
Trivial first, then the troubles.

He wore a name tag, which just so happened to rhyme with mine, and after handing him his coffee, he asked what it was.
What compels a stranger to ask for your name?


I feel so vulnerable with my hair pulled up
Exposed..
Like people are peaking at the back of my earlobes through the blinds and I can feel the warmth setting on the nape of my neck like the sun shining through them
I want to wrap my curls around myself and hide..
Fade..



Did you hear the one about the school teacher who won the sweepstakes to be on the space shuttle Challenger, the one that exploded seventy three seconds after take off and disintegrated, littering the ocean with built up promises and reminders, palms holding faces whispering
"don't let fear hold ya back"




Every January people pray that this year, this year!, will be better than the last, and I feel good admitting that none of mine will ever be as bad as the year the girl broke my heart, my parents broke up, and my first semester of college left me broke. Rock bottom was eighteen years old and wishing they would stop coming.





I'm know you still have fantasies about the girl with eyes the color of the plants she nurtures, how maybe she was the one that got away, how you wish she still wrote to you. It's getting easier to brush off as the time grows. I guess everyone has that person, the idea of them never leaves your heart even if the opportunity has.






I have twenty one voicemails I haven't yet listened to and I'm just - not.
I know somewhere at the very bottom, your voice is waiting for me, asking questions you never really cared to hear the answers for.







I have stored memories that I have never once shared with any one because of how badly they hurt me. I try not to carry the repercussions around with me. I try not to worry my future self by sharing the past with my present myself.








I've always been a collector,
of wine corks,
grocery lists,
small cut outs from magazines,
of sparse compliments you give in passing,
I hold on to every one and still wonder if you think I'm pretty.
I'm still trying to figure out
why I don't accept them in the moment,
how to.










Words come as easily as sleep these days,
usually not at all.
I try to quiet my breath and stop the sniffles so that you don't worry about me, mostly unsuccessfully.
I am always curious as to why sometimes, you'd rather not know what troubles my mind.
Don't ask, don't tell.










I'll let you quietly love, if that's the language you know.











Do you check up on me like you do with her?
Search for my name,
hear my name
with the same ring to it.
I know I said earlier that it's getting easier to deal with the fact that you still have this looming ******* love for her but you know what, it's not.
Not at all.









Sometimes I feel like I'm seventy three seconds away from exploding, disintegrating, littering the world with my broken promises,
the reminder of my failure to survive the pressure.









But don't feel bad.
and don't ask, I won't tell.
I'll let you love silently, if that's the language you know.