Mar 2021
I was awake at dawn today. My alarm rang out like a siren, somewhere in between cacophony and a symphony, but I greeted it anyway because it has been so long since I woke up in the morning and didn't want to drown myself in my covers because I am afraid that the woman in the glass will stare back at me with those boxcar eyes of hers, holding everything and nothing in her gaze, hopping years like stations and letting life pass in one transcendent blur. I smiled at her today. She smiled back.
3.
What it feels like to be a phoenix: my lungs were on fire, smoldering and collapsing with every breath as my heart and feet pounded in a rhythm so deafening I forgot to worry about being worried. A breeze ruffled the secret hollows of my body like it was preparing me for flight and I couldn't help but imagine that I was made of feathers and song. The evening sun seeping into my eyes, sweat trickling down my neck, every inch of me in so much pain that nothing else mattered except this high and the cushion of grass that embraced me at the end of the path when I flopped backward in exhaustion.
2.
I fell in love with E. South Fork Drive again. If this city is alive, then this street is the lifeblood, one large vein pulsating with noise and laughter and light amidst a greater network of memories and emotions that would put even the most epic of love stories to shame. I danced in the middle of the road in a series of twirls and skips that came back to me like muscle memory as the children clapped, following the girl who heard a melody they couldn't. Their parents, all dark circles and sleepless nights, only nodded in gratitude, and in that moment, I wondered when I first learned that all good things come to an end. The old widow who lives alone in the big house at the end of the lane must've known what I was thinking from the way she mirrored my expression, but she said nothing, only "don't stop on my account."
1.
3.
What it feels like to be a phoenix: my lungs were on fire, smoldering and collapsing with every breath as my heart and feet pounded in a rhythm so deafening I forgot to worry about being worried. A breeze ruffled the secret hollows of my body like it was preparing me for flight and I couldn't help but imagine that I was made of feathers and song. The evening sun seeping into my eyes, sweat trickling down my neck, every inch of me in so much pain that nothing else mattered except this high and the cushion of grass that embraced me at the end of the path when I flopped backward in exhaustion.
2.
I fell in love with E. South Fork Drive again. If this city is alive, then this street is the lifeblood, one large vein pulsating with noise and laughter and light amidst a greater network of memories and emotions that would put even the most epic of love stories to shame. I danced in the middle of the road in a series of twirls and skips that came back to me like muscle memory as the children clapped, following the girl who heard a melody they couldn't. Their parents, all dark circles and sleepless nights, only nodded in gratitude, and in that moment, I wondered when I first learned that all good things come to an end. The old widow who lives alone in the big house at the end of the lane must've known what I was thinking from the way she mirrored my expression, but she said nothing, only "don't stop on my account."
1.
