lethe

I wonder what it would be like if we were still together, two girls stumbling along the world, my mouth taped shut from exposing poisonous words, trapped in a love that should have died in my naive youth. I wonder what it would be like if we were still together, my first love, the source of everything terrifying about my own feelings, the pinnacle of my heart, the castle of everything I’ve ever thought about love. I wonder what it would be like if we were still together, so far away, your harmonious voice and sweet talk still reverberating my soul, the innocence vibrant. I wonder what it would be like if we got together, if your hands would still turn me to gold, or if I would give up the role I’ve been forced to play and stop wearing the mask the world weaved for me. I wonder what it would be like if we were still together, if I could’ve actually been capable of holding onto the feelings that terrified me, if I could’ve looked past the red flags popping up everywhere, in the most ...

I want it to be fall.  I want to walk across campus with you, leaves crunching beneath our feet as the paw prints lead the way to our destination.  I want to sit under a tree as the leaves change and fall onto us, books in our hands, a breeze blowing my hair in my face until you tuck it behind my ears.  I want to lay on the floor of my dorm with you, talking until the sun rises because I just can’t get enough of the sound of your voice. I want to throw poorly made paper airplanes at you from across the table on the top floor of the library. You’ll smirk at me, annoyed but willing to tolerate me.  I want to drink lattes while staring at your admiringly from across a cafe table. The coffee warms me up, but not as much as your aura does. I want brisk night walks with confessions underneath a blanket of stars.  I want visits to a pumpkin patch- I want to hear your laugh as I struggle to lift a pumpkin larger than myself.  I want all of this autumnal advent...

I imagine that loving me is something like visiting the beach in the winter. No, not a tropical, year-round paradise, but a lonely north Atlantic beach, barren once the tourists have deserted it and the cold has settled in. Loving me is like visiting a northern beach in the winter— completely pointless, cold, dreary, a waste of an otherwise, perfectly good trip. Love is supposed to be a vacation, but loving me is nothing close.

I had a dream last night. The type of dream in which I stumbled out of bed, still fully dressed, doused in a rum-induced daze and I stood upon the balcony. You stood beside me, the green condo silent behind us as fireflies of flashlights illuminated the blackened beach. The waves rolled in and out, in symphony with the beat of my pounding heart threatening to burst from its prison cell. My long dress flows between my legs, delicate, diaphanous materials whisking against sticky, bare skin. The jumble of tendrils blows in the wind, not elegantly or prettily, more-so awkwardly and I bat it away from my face before you catch my face caught in a sea of red velvet curls. It’s late at night. We’ve overstayed our welcome. I’d say you’ve overstayed your welcome in my hotel-like heart, while everyone checks in and out you’ve managed to stay, continuously extending your visit. The maids bring you fresh, cotton towels and toiletries to make your visit comfortable. Right now, every other room...

It’s a cycle- a discouraging cycle no one seems to grasp, one my own inner optimist cannot even begin to grab onto. There’s a chance everyone that follows will be like her, or her, or him, or her, and so on and then I’m trapped on a hamster wheel of feelings and thoughts and confusion and being left for all three of these things and wearing myself down as a result. There’s a chance I’ll find someone that is like none of these people, who is unlike anyone I’ve ever met- I hold onto this sliver of hope, this tiny fragment of reassurance that maybe there’s someone out there who won’t fuck me over or make me feel too much and not enough at the same time; the cycle makes this image of an idyllic state of being just that- ideal, but an image and nothing more. I can’t step into this image, I can’t paint or draw myself into it, I can admire it all I want and only feel as a painful consequence; the feeling this artwork gives me is too strong and is sure to let me down. It is the reason ther...

The west coast air is warm, wrapping around me like a comforting blanket as the California sun finally begins to set. Back home, the sun is already below the horizon, the sky is painted with black velvet, pinpoints of stars are shining through the darkness below, the trees are probably whistling as a cool wind trickles through the valley. My temporary home is an apartment, huddled behind a palm tree-lined street. Each morning I watch the sun rise from the small balcony, and each night I watch the sun set; it dips down, gradually lower and lower, sending the palm trees and houses across from me into an onyx silhouette before disappearing completely and allowing the stars to take their rightful thrones. I’m still not at home here, but if my surroundings can’t make me feel like home, then her voice will suffice for now. " It can’t be that bad,” she smiles at me, her face aglow on my phone’s screen. I shrug my shoulders, “It’s not bad… I just never thought I’d end up here,” ...

She was a black cat; mysterious at a glance, but with a glimmer of warm magic in her glittering green eyes. She was too unusual, so unwanted, lonely and yearning in secret to make a home out of someone permanently. He was a sorcerer, looking for magic and mischief in all the wrong places. He picked her up, showed her love, gave her what she thought she had been looking for, all in exchange for the magic hidden inside her. A wave of his magic wand was all it took, but his spell was not powerful enough. She screamed and hissed until she clawed her way out of there, deciding that if that was the price of love, she wanted nothing to do with it. So she ran away, roaming the streets and alleyways, a home within her wandering, a company in her loneliness, belonging to no one but herself.

I shouldn’t be counting down days until the breakup, I should be counting down the days until the breakdown from the end of this relationship, I should be in preparation to mourn, but mourning has become my permanent state. But he touches me with fingers like poison-tipped needles, paralyzing my every move in the worst way possible; not the heart-stopping, starstruck, paralyzed with love-feeling, either. I’m paralyzed with nothing left to say, the only numbness stemming from his scratchy lips on my neck, lining it with bruises as I nudge him away. He asks about my scars, not realizing he’s leaving new ones internally. He invalidates my feelings as I yawn and close my eyes, the sandman having more power over me than he has. I scrub myself in the shower, eager to get the feeling of him off of me, clawing at my own neck with a loofah in attempt to wash away his artificial sweetness. It was nice watching the rain with you, but the rain is down pouring inside of my mind and I think I’d...

I have become so tired of being a mouse caught in your mousetrap, or a fly stuck between your screen and window. I look around and see everyone who is free to roam as they must, but I’m constantly here with my leg in your trap. You see me struggling, ready to gnaw off my own limb, but you choose to keep me here while you nurture someone better than me. Maybe you love them more because the sun sparkles from their glance and my presence brings nothing but storm clouds and ominous thunder; maybe you love them more for their adventurous wildness while I’m best kept in a cage in the corner; maybe you love them more because they are beautiful flowers and I’m nothing but a bush hidden with poisonous berries. Occasionally I’m set free until I’m lured back, time and time again I actively choose to come back, thinking this time of all will be different, but as always, you’re frolicking in fields of wildflowers while I’m bleeding out.

I picture October. We’re standing outside and it’s chilly, there’s a breeze and it’s light enough to not disturb us, yet powerful enough to send some of the leftover, autumnal leaves shaking off of the trees and falling before us, landing in my hair and landing on some of the guests sitting around us and our friends standing beside us. There’s a flower crown on my head, an assortment of seasonal flowers weaved through my hair. My hair is dark raspberry and wavy, giving off a magenta glow in the sunlight filtering through the slightly barren trees. The long dress hangs loosely off my body, my pale skin even paler in contrast to the white dress and the golden glow of the afternoon around us. Underneath the diaphanous fabric, my feet are clad in flat, jeweled sandals, toenails painted in oxblood. The sun sets on us with tears flowing down our cheekbones, leaves rustling underneath our steps, and hands entwined so tightly I’m not sure I’ll ever want to let go. Everyone around us is bas...