Post Traumatic Munchies

Walking walking walking

Down

Down

Down

Strangely familiar ally ways

The sound of new friends with old friends with laughter with memories

Smoke

Smoke smoke smoke

Chimnies, all of us, strangers to friends in an instant

tied together by the bonds of wax paper and all that

smoke.

Time moves

Slow, but fast

A rollercoaster of events seeming to zoom by

but sure enough you roll back into the station

(the one you waited two hours in line to get to)

check your watch and it's only been two minutes

But in your head it's eternity.

Teeth, tongue, caress, caress

Turn away, turn away, turn away

It's not fair

When all this time I've been waiting for someone else.

Walk away, away

Familiar roads, familiar brick, familiar entrance, elevator, back door

Don't look your mother with those eyes

Bee line towards food

Pass out

Wash, rinse, and repeat tomorrow.

wow oaky.

He cradles his face in his hands, left foot tapping out rhythmical nonsense on the sterile floor. Every couple of  taps his foot squeaks against the tile floor and he digs his fingers into the corner of his eyes tightly. Every nerve in his body is pulsing and pulled so far stretched he feels like he could smother the universe with his tension.
----------
Her voice broke long ago and she's left a pain-filled mess on a hospital bed with muscles twitching in her thighs and her eyes are starting to roll back but she blinks harshly and the twinkling lights reassure her that she's still conscious.
Nurses are flitting in and out of the room and one of them drags in a small wheel-y chair, and a creaking means she's seated and at the foot of the bed.
She's speaking from behind a surgical mask, rubbing her thumb absently on her left knee, and she realizes this is the closest she's ever had a girl come to her vagina before before another surge of pain racks up her spine and a scream twists itself out of her throat that ends with a scratch.
She faintly hears an, "I think I see the head!" before black spots spiral into view and she knows nothing more.
-----------
He hears the nurse clear her throat across the room and his insides are twisting inside him, pulling him into standing before he's aware of what he's doing. The nurse stares at him for a second, two, five, ten. Her face is taught and her furrowed eyebrows are casting his heart into pounding furiously against his chest.
She offers him a hand, and he allows himself to be led through a series of hallways a doors. A hand is constant on his back and he vaguely wonders about the silence of the trip. As they walk passing hospital staff seem to stop and stare at them, and he realizes with harsh twist of all the thrumming blood vessels in his body that they're marching the death waltz towards the pregnancy wing.
----------------
She's been awake for three hours and twenty-four minutes but all she can focus on is the pitying look on the nurses face, and the doctor who rested his hand gently on her arm as he told her the news. How it wasn't her fault and that it could happen to anyone, but words were spilling up inside her chest, about why this happened to her, if it could happen to anyone, why not them?
Words and accusations are cycling through her mind, a proverbial cyclone of anger, depression, grief, denial, and self-hatred that had her turn away the ham and cheese sandwich a nurse offered her for lunch.
-------------------
He's standing outside the hospital room, incapable of bringing himself into the room. The floor is seeming to pulse beneath his feet and a quick glance at the ceiling consists of swirling lights and ceiling tiles. He swallows but it's hard as it falls down his throat and he digs his fingers into the sides of his neck as his breathing quickens and he allows the full realization of the situation to dig into him. As he loses himself in his heavy breathing he hears screams from behind closed doors, and as a nurse rushes in, he hears in between door closings sobs of 'let me see my baby'.
He almost believes he can feel tiny fingers wrapping themselves around his heart as he breaks down into silent sobs, sliding down the wall with shaking shoulders and a heavy heart.

Seventeen

It’s her birthday.

Part of me wants to say “Dear Darling, Happy birthday! Love you lots! Signed, Me”

and part of me wants to rip out my heart, stick a candle in it and give it to her
to say, “here, make a wish, and while you’re at it, blow out the fucking candle that’s keeping this fucking flame alive, cause my heart just can’t take it anymore”

and part of me wonders if she would wish for what I want her to wish for.
I wonder if she would wish for us back.

we are nowhere and this is now

It was her 4th party that day, so she called it her 'after-after-after party' and spent it in the basement bathroom with a Spanish stripper named Fabio and a boy who had love bites scattered all over his chest playing Mao in the shower stall.
--------------
"The only person who's ever given me their number was the police officer, and it was the suicide-prevention number, too. But, hey, you gotta start somewhere!"
-------------------
"I fell asleep on the bus today while some chick was hitting on me," Aaron muses into his red plastic cup. "But, in my defense, I'm gay."
---------------

fluid pistachios

"I'm not sure what sex i am"
"you're a female."
"but i think i'm a male."
"then you are a male."
"but you just said i'm a female?"
"your gender is male, but your sex is female"
"aren't they the same thing?"
"sex is between your legs, and gender is between your ears"
"but what about the days where i feel like i'm nothing?"
"then you're genderfluid"
"but what about if i felt like i was a female?"
"then you would be considered cis."
"but i'm not,"
"so then you are a transgendered."
"does the trans stand for transformer?"
"only if you're willing to morph yourself."

gender issues

"if i shove this dildo into my pants and keep it there for a few days, do you think it'll blend itself into my skin and i'll end up with-a penis instead of a vagina?"
"I think you've reached your marijuana limit,"

voeux.

i want to be gone, to dissipate into the breeze like a breath of dandelion seeds
a thousand infinitesimal possibilities scattered beyond the realm of perception
caressing mortal souls, yet elusive to their searching grasp
floating tranquilly until the wind settles, and i am at home in the world,
free in the open embrace of forgotten nothingness at last.

a jog.

7 blocks.

She was only 7 blocks from her house in perfect white suburbia where kids spend the evening hours screaming and chasing each other up the asphalt street.

7 blocks had her jogging down a street where the curbs were smoothed to the point of no definition, and the lawns are only grassy patches on dirt continents. The houses were silent, blinds drawn in front of windows made from dusty glass and screen doors that didn't quite fit the frame.

On one side of the street a YIELD sign was angled facing the ground; on the other side was the 50 feet of empty asphalt and sidewalk of a dead-end street.

She turned over the corner, only to find the eyes of seven kids all under the age of 8 watching her. As she jogged closer they quickly ran about the yard, shoving their scooters off the sidewalk but never leaving their gaze from her. They watched her till she was four houses away, before they started to scream and cheer again.

The driveways are cracked and crumbled in some parts, with trees taking over the main front lawn of some houses; encasing the silent neighborhood in long shadows.

On the other side of the street teenagers are talking. Their walk is measured with percise steps taken so their heels meet the ground with legs outstretched and spine curved backwards. Their hoodies are gray and covering their faces and she wonders if any of them will grow up to be victims.

Turning a corner a block away from her is a mother with a baby in a stroller. A minute pass and soon she's jogging past, nodding in greating to the mother who seems startled and nervous. The baby gurgles and claps its hands messily, the mother hushes it softly.

9 blocks later, and she's crossing the invisible line between the housing districts.

A block later and the houses are getting larger, the lawns are getting greener, and the sidewalks are perfect.

7 blocks later and she's stopping in front of her house in a white suburbia, listening to the children run up and down the asphalt street. Her breathe is caught in her lungs and she's struggling to regain it, and her adventure to the other side of the fence is done for the day.

7 blocks away is her secret entrance to to a different world hidden in plain site.

7 blocks.

Limits to Infinity.

Some friendships end abruptly—maybe over a love interest, maybe over money, maybe over personal ambition. There might be drama, complete with some exchange of screaming and crying and hysterical reminders of past promises. It's true. Breakups are often ugly.

Not us, though.

One of my favorite authors, John Green, liked to talk about numbers and infinity and how some infinities were bigger than others. Take 0.1, for instance. Then suppose you follow it with 0.11, then 0.111, 0.1111 and so on until you have an infinity of ones. But this isn't as big as the infinity of twos, with 0.2, 0.22, 0.222, 0.2222, and all the rest, each number adding to an infinity twice as big.

I liked to think that we were whole once, years ago--or at least as whole as we could be. Within the wholeness of our selves, we shared a warm, stalwart infinity that would stretch across years, college, careers, marriages, children… We'd remedy our midlife crises with a great big heat-to-heart talk and equally great big quantities of chocolate. I realize now that I was wrong. What we share is not so much infinity as it is infinitesimal, dwindling with every passing week of booked schedules and cancelled dates.

0.1 You play varsity tennis, I do varsity speech.
0.01 The day we're supposed to meet up with old friends, I have plans with my boyfriend.
0.001 I just don't see you at school anymore.

One day, you decide that our infinitesimal is no longer worth the recognition. It has become negligible, no longer a significant figure. Humans may not be inverse functions with asymptotes, but we still have limits that converge on values, except that instead of numbers, those values are usually things like trust, perseverance, and integrity.

So you took our 0.0000001
and rounded down.

From time to time, I still see your face, the flicker of light in your irises, the way you twist your mouth upward into a smile. For a moment I wonder if we are still clinging to that 0.000000001.

But I know better.
We are nothing.
I have other infinities to seek.

fridays

Friday afternoons felt like the only time she ever saw her father, even though every evening when she made the table for dinner she asked if he wanted ice in his water and he always responded.

"No ice, thank you,"

But on Friday afternoons she would treck through the front door, shoulders aching and feet blistered and he would be sitting at the kitchen table, Wall Street Journal in front of him.

To his right, his glasses and a bottle of diet Pepsi.

To his left, a bag of Doritos and Salsa con Queso.

The only sound between the ruffling of his papers was the sound of the jar of queso being slid across table, and they both ignored the countdowns they each were preparing for.

Till his retirement in three years.

Till his eventual knee-surgery sometime this year.

Till his elder daughter finally straightened out her life.

Till his youngest daughter figured out hers.

Till his wife aligned out her spine.

Till the Exterminator comes next Tuesday.

Till the lawn needs to be mowed again.

And all they did was rap their knuckles on the table and slide a jar of Salsa con Queso between the two of them because there wasn't a use waiting.

They never talked during these moments. Then again, they never talked, ever. They were strangers connected by a bond of parent-and-child; now only a girl who made herself grow up when she was 4 and went to her first funeral, and a man who stopped trying to dye his hair after the first of numerous times his health was sapped from his bloody fingernails.

They pass each other in the hallway with nary a glance, but sometimes they ask how the other is doing, and they listen with half an ear; they speak with a quarter of enthusiasm.

When she comes home with tears in her eyes and a heart broken within her crushed and crackled knuckles he offers a band-aid, and a promise of wisdom to come. Stretching his wisdom across a chasm that neither are sure exist anymore, she heals her cuts and he watches, too weary to even attempt to pick up the band-aid that's fallen to the floor.

And when he comes back with curses on his lips and a suitcase full of papers of wrong ideas, she can only offer a reprieve in the promise that he'll be done soon. She lends him an understand look leveled with a promise of brownies over the weekend, and the unspoken deal of not mentioning either of theirs diets.

Sometimes she wants to remember when she was younger and they went on carnival rides together and he was able to pick up dollar bills when they fell to the ground an she wasn't afraid of touching him in fear that his skin will burst from the pressure.

But she dips her doritos into a jar of Salsa con Queso before sliding it back where it barely touches the edge of the Wall Street Journal and she's fine with waiting for deadlines.

Envy.

I know I’m supposed to be happy for you or whatever
but it actually really hurts, like a punch to the stomach that makes me want to vomit.
You're disgusting, you know that?
You're disgusting because you embody all of my id's desires,
everything for which I can't help but lust no matter how much I try and hack away at the baobabs;
the weeds just keep spreading and spreading like a neurotoxin in the bloodstream
until paralysis threatens to clench its vise on my mind
and I can't look at you anymore.

The Music Box

The tiny ballerina twirled on her golden pedestal, a slight smile painted on her rosy lips. Her perfect golden locks were bound up in a bun on the top of her head, and her eyes were closed in Madonna-like bliss. She twirled and twirled, her leg bent gracefully and her arms in a perfect O above her head, heedless of everything but the Tchaikovsky waltz emanating from her music box. She did not notice the little girl who watched her with disheveled blond hair and blue eyes filled with tears, did not notice the yelling from the hall, did not notice the smell of alcohol or the sound of breaking glass. She simply twirled, oblivious to the world around her.

As Marissa watched the dancer in the music box, she sobbed. She thought back to when she got the music box, after her first ballet recital two years ago. It was a gift from her parents, back when Father laughed more than he yelled and when Mother smiled more than she cried. Everything she could remember from those days seemed magical, like a fairy tale-- no, like a dream sequence in a ballet that would never end. Now almost every night there was screaming and shattering and crying coming from the kitchen, as Marissa sat in bed holding her breath, dreading that the angry footsteps and slamming doors would find their way to her room.

One more bottle shattered, and the kitchen door slammed. Marissa heard the dreaded footsteps stomping up steps. She heard muttering now too, angry and threatening and dark. She heard the Tchaikovsky waltz still playing softly, the ballerina's dance winding down. Marissa looked at the golden dancer in the music box. "I wish--"

Marissa twirled on her golden pedestal, a slight smile on her rosy lips.  Her perfect golden locks were bound up in a bun on the top of her head, and her eyes were closed in Madonna-like bliss. She twirled and twirled, her leg bent gracefully and her arms in a perfect O above her head, heedless of everything but the Tchaikovsky waltz emanating from the music box. She did not notice the little girl slumped like a rag doll, disheveled blond hair nearly touching the floor, did not notice the muffled sobs and far-off sirens, did not notice the smell of blood or the glint of shattered glass. She simply twirled, oblivious to the world around her. 

Espresso Stories of December!

At that moment he felt more uncomfortable than a Jain in a Purell factory.

‎"Someday," He told her, "I'll paint this wall." It was only now that she realized that at that time he had already known that he would be the paint.

“I’m still going strong,” She said at her final AA meeting, “Because the show goes on. And it isn’t my death scene, yet."

Jesus, Jesus, please, give me a sign!"

And thunder smashed and the clouds billowed above her head as a booming voice shouted out, "I AM A SAGITTARIUS"

Are you sure you don't want a cat?"

"No, I am absolutely horrid with animals,"

"Now come on, I'm certain you aren't that bad,"

"I had a pet rock once. It died."

‎"Look, I used to have a cactus. It died in nineteen days. I'm poisonous, and you'd better get out."

And it's true every time: I come for you but I stay for me.

Don't tell me how far I'll go until you know how far I've come.

‎"You know, you really taught me how to believe in love." "Yeah, well, you really taught me how to believe in reality."

I don't need to break in to see inside; there's only so much in that glass mind.

“You’re leaving the Brazilian summer to go to a Chicago winter?” “ Yeah, but where I’m going is so much warmer"

I’ve never really gotten over anyone, especially myself.

She had 5 hours of testing in front of her and she spent her time preparing in the back of a bar getting wasted.

every sunday they stole their parents liquor cabinets and bathed in the alcohol content, listening to spanish opera all the while

Her mouth mouth said no, and her body continued this notion by punching him in the face repeatedly until he fell to the floor unconscious.

It spent her 5 hours, and in the end all she had to show of it was, "Plants are nice. They are often green. In conclusion, plants."

She named her child Manifest because everyone deserved a destiny.

‎"Is love supposed to hurt?"

"I wouldn't know, I've never been in love. I have been hit by a car however, and that hurt."

‎"I'm leaving." His sudden announcement metaphorically bodyslammed her into the wall, right before her mixed martial-arts training literally bodyslammed him into the wall. Either way, he could've had the decency to stick around and help pick up the pieces.

‎"TANKS!"

"Don't mention it."

She was the kind of girl that walked through the zoo thinking, "We all want to be free"

She spent her life reaching for rainbows, and she died in the arms of a man dressed like a unicorn.

She stayed up till 5 in the morning watching and re-watching The Notebook, and she wondered if she had an addiction to helpless love stories.

‎"It smells like weed in here."

"Weed. Like, as in grass? Like freshly cut grass? Well then, I don't really know because we weren't cutting grass at all."

He's the type of gay who woke up one morning, said, 'Shit, let's try liking dick today!' and never looked back.

He knew he had trouble falling asleep when he tried to imagine sheep jumping over a fence, and they ran head first into the fence instead.

She was 94 and one/eights years old, and her will stated she wanted all of her items and possessions to be put into storage forever, because she was a dick that way.

She signed all her cards XIO; kisses, boners, and hugs.

---Lynn, Patti, Christie, Julie

Expresso Stories of November

"i remember" he always said but he always never knew what he was supposed to remember

every promise he made was over a bottle of beer, so it really wasn't a surprise when he died from alcohol poisoning.

When she got the phone call that her mother was dead she really didn’t know what to expect, let alone the voice over the receiver telling her that she died attempting to stop a burglary with a sack of bagels and a sharp-wit.

the smell of sharpie never fades away, though the locker has long since been cleaned and painted over.

His hugs felt exactly how love should feel, and she couldn't help but laugh at the irony as she wished her ex-jail mate well before they carted her off to the death sentence.

Peter realized his day would be off-kilter when he was complimented on what a wonderful Drag Queen he would make.

It was a cold day - a Sunday - as she promised everything in the world to him, but she never ate a morsel, and he never ended up with what he wanted.

He - she? - existed only through google searches and even then the right answer wasn't always found.

A mixed chorus of "awww"s and "ewww"s echoed behind him as he leaned over the car door to kiss his boyfriend. He couldn't care less.

With a sort of dislocated interest she realized she grew up with these girls and on her better days she couldn't even remember their names, let alone any withstanding memories before the accident.

On 11:11 of 11/11/2011, she wished that she would live to see another 11:11 11/11/11 come along. She died one century later at 11:12pm.

Her legs were shaking as she walked to the door, but her hand was steady as she flipped him the bird.

Whenever he said goodbye, he walked backwards because he knew whatever he was leaving was beautiful and he couldn't take his eyes away.

"Am I destined to die?"

"We're all destined to die, you know. Whether it be from gunshot or cancerous tumor."

"I never expected it to be both,"

"Me neither."

Her favourite flowers were the Winter Wildflowers because they bloomed at midnight and she liked the adventure.

“It’s just algebra,” He said, steadily taking off his pants.

She turned to leave, “I don’t remember learning that one plus one equals one in math class.”

He took out a condom, “At least it won’t equal three."

He was a one man circus, always on the trapeze, the audience cheering for him to fall.

She could only kiss when drunk, because nobody intoxicated her enough to do otherwise.

Once a month she could use tampons as swords; she could fight off an army of dicks just by claiming she was already stabbed.

If I said all I need in life was you, that would be a lie, cause it takes a lot of food and water to keep me alive enough to love you this much.

She knew she should stop listening to Adele when depressed because breaking down into sobs on the school bus was not only awkward to explain, but extremely embarrassing.

‎"When I said I wanted the love of my life to elbow their way into my life, this wasn't what I expected," She cried as she held her broken nose carefully in the hospital waiting room.

Their bodies were huge but their love was skinny.

"I'm an asshole with a low IQ, an addiction to drinking and cigarettes, and the largest sex drive this side of the Mississippi. I know what true love is."

The music was loud but their screams were louder as the shower head turned on.

We’re a fairytale, but I’m no princess.

Home was a cramped apartment filled with the violent sounds of dreams being shattered--so even though she was reduced to a crawling, dancing, self loathing “professional” every night around her pole, she did anything not to click together her bright red pumps.

they told him that no one should have to bury this parents alone but he wasn't sure if their presence was comforting or suffocating.

All I wanted was to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving, thought Bob, laying on the table as the Turkeys laid out their silverware.

The rope was 60 feet, the fall 45, and she wondered which would kill her first.

Her grandmother used all the oxygen in her lungs to blow out her 89th birthday candles, and she died face-planting into the cake.

Their hats had fake curls attached at the sides, but the jewish-side of his family at least appreciated the gesture

The marching band spelled out the four-word phrase as he dropped down to one knee, she knew band-geeks made the best husbands

Every argument they ever entered into was settled with a game of beer-pong, with the loser having to go out to buy aspirin the next morning.

Looking into his eyes was like staring down a shed cicada shell. He was dead, she was empty, it was over.

I love you the way the buttered side of the toast loves the ground. Maybe it's messy, but it's something I can always count on.

Her bruises took weeks to heal, but he was still the cutest source of domestic abuse.

--- Julie, Christie, Patti, Lynn

Breaking Down

Edgar's perfect face glistened in the afternoon sun, his full lips curling into a smirk as he saw me waiting by his car. "Get in, darling," he said, voice as smooth and rich as dark chocolate. I loved him. I had always loved him. 


"Wait," I said, nearly tripping over my own boots as I tried to block the door. "We need to talk." 


He smiled, sunlight sparkling on his skin and glinting off his sharp, even teeth. "What is it NOW, Barbara?"


"That girl." I frowned. "That girl I saw you walking with. Who was she?"


"Baby, she's nothing," he said as he leaned in to kiss me. I tried to push him away, my fingers brushing against his cold marble skin. 


"I don't believe you."


"You know I'd never do that."


"I've seen the way you look at her. I've heard the rumors." I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and the tears well up in my eyes. I was sure I looked hideous to him now. But I didn't care. 


"They're not true, whatever they are." He drew closer to me, and I felt his iron grip tighten on my shoulder. "And besides. We aren't exactly in a position to say anything to anyone, are we?" 


I was crying for real now. "I'll tell them. I'll tell them all your secret. I'll tell EVERYONE in the SCHOOL! I'll do it!"


He wrapped me in his cold, perfect arms. "My dearest, I don't believe you will," he whispered, as he gently drew his fangs and plunged them into my neck. 

espresso over a long time.

Richard considered running to the bathroom to vomit when, after coming out to his elder sister as gay, she offered him various types of gay porn magazines.

I know i'm in love this time."
"what makes this any different?"
"i don't have butterflies in my stomach. i have fireworks."

I wonder if the physical distance between us is inversely proportional to the togetherness of our hearts.

It didn't matter how many perfect six-packs or smokin' hot man thongs I had seen in my life-- when the boy with the hipster glasses pulled out The Grapes of Wrath and read behind his cello in rehearsal, I knew he was the HOTTEST man I had ever seen.

keep your drink just give me the money.
sorry bud. just you, your hand, and a bottle of your own self-pity tonight.

As she pushed her hips back against the body behind her, she realized with a neutral opinion that she didn't even know his name.

it doesn't matter to me how I've never met him, how i've never talked to him, how i've never even made eye contact with him. I know I love him with all of my soul, and that is what matters.

Normalcy sat in the corner sipping his tea, while insanity poured more vodka into her Coca Cola. Both of them knew that their waltz would soon become a salsa.

God, space, time, math, light, dreams, imagination. The list goes on and on. With no end and no beginning. We’re trapped in infinity, baby.

She guilt tripped her way into college, and into his life.

He gripped the grass underneath him with all his strength, willing himself not to go off flying off into the sky like a murderous Peter Pan.

Mary ignored the giggles as she walked to the front of the church. After seventeen years of the most normal name imaginable, she was proud to be confirmed as Sexburga Euclidia Hedwig.

She wondered plainly if her end of life flashbacks would come in the form of a quickly scrolled through Facebook newsfeed.

I get up at 4:45 AM every morning to run, and all day long I never stop running.

Every day she bought blank CD's, cans of oranges, and a set of coat hangers and never before has Christian been more interested.

The Christian traditionalist laid down his rifle as he watched the new generation aim their M-16s at a flamboyant hedonist demise.

‎"Sexy and I know it"? Hate to break it to you, but it's more like "sexy and you think it", sweetie.

I’ll lie to you and lie to you until I think you’re finally ready for the truth.

Until that day I got hopelessly lost in the woods, I never even thought about finding myself.

"You look like the underside of a dirty couch cushion." "Excuse me?" "I mean, I really wanna shake you out."

Zombie butterflies. Just when I think I’ve killed all those stupid bugs that make my heart beat faster when you look at me, they come back. And this time they’re after my brain.

she resigned to the fact she would spend the entire night awake, and stripped to her underwear, opened the psychology textbook, got out that small stash of weed in her underwear drawer, and prepared to go to town.

The awkward silence around the dinner table after Maria spoke left her with a sudden urge to lift her arms and declare, 'And the Lord said, Let there be silence!'.

‎"Love..." he said, squirting the Purell gel on his almost rawly clean hands, "Has never seemed very interesting to me..." he rubbed his hands together obsessively, "...or very sanitary."

‎"Here's the thing," she said, taking her first step into the pool of color, "I don't want to make art. I want to drown in it."

In that moment of pleasure he forgot that he was a homophobic christian, and the hands running down his neck belonged to a boy in his english class.

They always tell me my shirts don’t match my pants, and I always say their actions don’t match their religion.

He acted different, he talked different, he looked different. He hung out with different people. But I didn't realize my best friend had become a stranger until the day I first noticed him typing with capital letters.

--Patti, Juliana, Christie, Mark, Lynn

Hypocrite

When a man hits you, my darling

Leave.

Don’t think about the money

You’re smart enough to make some on your own.

Don’t think about the love

Because what’s dead and cold is dead and cold

And there are more charming fish in the sea, 

So don’t settle for a low-life sushi.

Don’t think about the house, your clothes, the washing and drying machines

Materials will not make a family.

But think about your children, my darling.

Think about them in the way that I so often forget to think about you

And Brother

Think about who they will grow up to be

Think about how they will view love

And relationships

Think about it

Think about what you’re teaching your daughter to bare if you stay

To let a man hit her

To control her

To make her feel like she’ll never have another

Think about it, my darling, think about how your daugter would feel

having to cover up the bruises.

Think about it

Think about what you’re teaching your son to do if you stay

To control his women by force

To allow himself to be so frustrated

So self contemptful

So scared that he would take it out on another person’s body

Think about it, my darling, think about what your son would do

to a girl who never learned to leave.

Think about their children, my darling

Can you bare to be just another branch of the tree

Who wouldn’t leave?

I am sorry, my darling,

That I could never lead by example

That I chose a man who acted like a two year old

Who threw tantrums without knowing his own strength

And always aimed for the head.

I am so sorry, my darling,

That I am just another branch on the tree,

But I hope

That you realize that you are strong enough

To be the root

Of those who know how to leave.

Negative Four Hundred and Fifty-Nine Degrees Fahrenheit.

because, y'know, nothing can really mean everything.
you say there's nothing on that desk.

perhaps a stray scrap of paper,
maybe a thin piece of pencil lead,
or even an eraser shaving.
but nothing, essentially.

nothing is always everything.

that stray scrap of paper was from a larger piece of paper,
perhaps a piece of a love letter.
and that epitomal heartache one must always feel.
a teacher with their own story.
you got your paper from the store.
and the store got it from a processing plant,
and the processing plant got it from good ol' nature.
and a single molecule of carbon dioxide being absorbed by that tree.
and 7 billion others breathing that single molecule.
and nothing comes back to everything.

that extraneous piece of lead.
maybe that mechanical pencil was clicked with vehement intensity one too many times.
struggling to put down those three oh so complex words,
'I love you'.
and the last time you saw this heartthrob they turned away snobbishly,
the first time they turned in the same fashion,
and nothing has changed but you still feel the same.
and oh how it hurts.
every twinge of pain,
every needle of suffering,
every. single. twisted. word.
carving caverns into your brain,
oversimplifying the simple,
and nothing comes back to everything.

even those eraser shavings.
puny elongated strips of rubber.
rubbing away any pain,
any harm,
any hope.
and we say bye bye to those three words,
because you're a teenager.
you don't know what love is.
you probably can't even define it.
you're ridiculous.
you know it too.
you're wrong.
and those eraser shavings just prove it.
prove how reasonable you are.
prove that you know what is best.
and nothing comes back everything.

because nothing means everything.
I know what everything is.
I know what nothing is.
and I know how to differentiate the two.

so now you know to trust me when I say I feel absolutely nothing for you.

blood and faith in two different places.

"you want to know the truth? i don't trust her."

"oh no, you can't say that about your family!"

"i'm telling you, i don't trust her. i mean, i can trust her with the important things, like secrets and feelings. but money? no. make her do errands? no. i can't trust her to do anything i want her to do, and that bothers me."

"but that's how a lot of people are."

"i know. most other people act that way, i don't care. they can do whatever. they can do whatever they want to as long as it doesn't encroach on me. but she's family. because she's family, i hold her to my own moral standards. is that too much to expect? i know i'm not morally perfect, and whatever flaws i have, i cannot hold against her. but you know what she doesn't do that i do? she doesn't keep her word. she's not outright dishonest exactly, but when you lend her money, you have to badger her about it. otherwise, she money never makes its way back to you. and every time she goes out with her girlfriends, she tells you she'll be back at a certain time and always comes home late saying 'oh, i figured i only had to have left by then,' even though she definitely knew you told her you needed her home by that time. they're just little things like that, nothing huge, but all the same, they reflect her lack of integrity. and i don't know if it's naïve of me or what, but i do hold to my word. when i say i'll do something, i'll do it, and it really bothers me when other people don't do the same. i'm not talking about the empty polite offers people make all the time to be social, like 'oh, i'll call you later,' because both parties know it's not going to happen. i'm talking about actual promises where you're counting on the other person to really follow through. and if someone can't do that, i can't be close to that person. i won't stop relations or anything drastic, but i won't like them as much."

"but you can't just shut all these people out just because they don't do what you want them to do."

"i know, business is business. i realize that. but her? i'm just saying, i don't care that she's family; if she ever comes running to me because her lack of integrity gets her into any trouble, i am not going to give her any financial favors. moral support, sure. we can talk it out, discuss ideas. but i can't trust her with any real affairs."

"are you really sure about that?"

"i told you, if she doesn't have integrity, i can't trust her."

"you have no heart."

"you're right, maybe i don't."

Waiting

September 2, 1862

The sun shone hot above the sleepy town of Naperville, slowly withering the crops in the fields and drying out the puddles from last night’s storm. Mary sat on her porch in her lightest summer gown, listening to the cicadas’ buzzing tremolo and mending a pair of her husband’s socks. The heat was so intense it made waves on the horizon reflecting off the windows of the houses; even the horses in the streets seemed to beg for relief, too hot even to flick their tails to ward off flies. Mary barely noticed the heat, nor did she register the motion of the needle in her steady hands. Her mind was preoccupied: she was waiting for a letter.

Her son Robert had been gone for six months now, drafted to fight in the war against the rebels in the South. The mail trains came infrequently and the soldiers often had no time for letters, but Robert wrote to his mother as often as he could. Mary missed him dearly; he was her youngest child and her only son, just seventeen years old when the army came through town. Her other three daughters had each married farmers from neighboring towns, and although they came to visit as often as they could, it was nearing harvest time and there was work to be done at home. Now it was just Mary and her husband living in the old home by the river, maintaining their dairy farm and waiting for news about the war.

Mary did not know that her last letter from Robert sat on a table by the fireplace. She did not know she had read that letter many times already, and replied to it in depth. She knew nothing of the battle at Bull Run earlier that week, nothing of the Confederate bullet that had wounded her son, nothing of the surgeon that could not save him. Soon an officer would arrive by train with a flag and a grave face, informing Mary that she had joined the ranks of mothers who had lost a child to the war. Soon Mary would be surrounded by grieving friends and relatives reminding her that the President had said this war would not be without its sacrifices. Now, however, Mary sat on her porch in the late summer heat blissfully unaware of the dark events to come. She sat peacefully, contentedly, mending her husband’s sock and listening to the ever-present buzz of cicadas, waiting for a letter.