03

i think i will always be lonely in this world. often, i wonder if that is what becomes of children who grow up seeking love in whorehouses—who learn to chew on grief like stale bread and swallow it whole, who are taught to grit their teeth and bear it the same way they are taught to hold the knife between them. who find comfort in silent films with subtitles delayed by two seconds and a desire to break the narrative.

"is it possible to exist in this world without knowing how to?"

"when i was young—13, 14, 15—i always felt like a lost boat. adrift. and i wonder at times, oh— that was not such a bad way to exist. rather it was beautiful... so i continue to do so. and when you have been dealt with all the wrong cards of the deck, it is outrageous to say 'it is not so bad to sit back and see where the tide takes me'—but... just... for a minute, what if?"

"i will think of you and know somewhere in the world there is a clueless little ship roaming the waters. perhaps you are in search of me—?"

i laugh. in that way where it's hilarious but not funny—where i want to cry but don't.

"i doubt it. but it is a nice thought to have nonetheless."

perhaps if i don't think about you too much, you'll cease to exist. but i seem to forget that you are beyond simply just a figment of my imagination. i never knew it was humanly possible to miss a person so deeply and passionately until your heart pressed against mine—until your name made a grave out of my mouth.

i love you as much as i miss you—i love you as i do the fading fire of august and freshly baked bread and music that goes beyond genres and the moon. the rain. the sunset. but not just any sunset—no. think of the sun as a creature that exists outside of time and space. five hundred centuries ago, perhaps a poet by the waters watched the same sun sink into the earth and tried to pin it down with words. perhaps fifty years ago, a woman dying of brain cancer spent her last breath watching the very same sunset the poet had written about. perhaps in her hand she held the book where he had tried to explain how it feels to encounter god getting off a twelve-hour shift.

to love you as much as a dying man loves the dying sun—lord, that is such a great deal of love. and i fear it would be the end of me. but mostly, i fear the way it does not fear me enough.

and i will sit on pavements and drink coffee and pluck at the daisies—but only a little, because i start to feel guilty after three seconds and tear at my flesh instead. i'd write you letters asking when you'll visit again, asking what you'll do when you run out of ways to hold me. when you are the winter and i—the summer. when my roots ripen, will you stand with the sun on your back, even if you are the winter and i—the summer?

what then?

it feels criminal to be in love, don't you think?

if misery were god, i wonder how he would bless the people who kneel for him. would they be granted better days? my god is contentment and i can never seem to satisfy him enough with my sad prayers. i wonder if i existed in a different way—if i stood a little straighter—he would hold me for even a minute. i wonder how it feels to be held by a billion universes at the same time. would i feel the writhing, dying, burning stars against my skin? would it feel more like disappointment than love? how sad it must be to be let down by every creature you breathe life into.

i hope you know that i would die and come back to life a thousand times, i would roam this earth and smell every flower and swim every lake and read every poem and cry in the rain until i became the perfect creation—stand before god and ask the universe to be placed in your palm if you asked me to.

there are mad comets running through who i am, craters across my shoulders, pores across my thighs—it is hideous and human and i will sit on your patio and stitch flowers from your garden into my wounds until it doesn't hurt to be in love with me.

i was not written to be a mother nor a bride, and i am constantly breaking the boxes that people try to hammer my bones into. i have this violent urge to go berserk but i bottle it up until you go to bed and never remind you that until recently it resided within you instead. and i will explode against the late-night conversations and apologies you spun around me like silk, like nooses.

and i will tell you that you are the most wonderful little arrangement of atoms i have ever had the pleasure of loving.