who are You
to create and then
proclaim Broken
that which you designed

who are You
to demand of all
praise and love
by threat of Damnation

who are You
to make from
endless dark Peace
a bright ball of pain and suffering

who are You
who can be angry
jealous and selfish
yet Perfect

who are You
to hand out Forgiveness
when really
You must be forgiven

who are You
to create Hope
and then remove it all
with Divine Destruction

who are You
Hypocrisy
Monstrosity
Catastrophe

who are you
Nothing to me
for Nothing
is all I have Faith

It was cold. A cloud of visible breath rose from his mouth into the starless night.

“I just wanted to say a few things, you know, about us.” There was something in his voice when he said ‘us.’ Something like uncertainty.

“Sure man, anything,” his friend replied, not showing any signs of uncertainty. His friend wasn’t just a friend though. He was a best friend.

“Okay, so, uh…” he trailed off, suddenly forgetting everything.

“Take your time buddy,” his best friend said, ever patient.

“Of all the friends I’ve had, none have ever given me such a profound sense of respect.” His best friend shrugged it off, “Of course, that’s what friends are for.”

“But…” He trailed off again. His best friend just looked at him this time.

“Remember when I’d spend the night here, way back when?” he said suddenly. They were standing outside his best friend’s house at the time. A gust of wind started up. The surrounding trees made whispers in the dark. He crossed his arms and shivered.

“Yeah, we’d stay up all night playing video games,” his best friend recalled, smiling.

“And I would always get too loud and excited about whatever we were playing, and I’d always wake up your mom, who would complain about my wall-penetrating voice,” he laughed, “and I would forget that whenever I lost a life or a race or whatever it was. Your poor mom hardly got any sleep whenever I was there. Or, here, I mean.” He looked at the ground and kicked his right toe into the moist grass beneath his feet. It didn’t really help him think. He didn’t know why he did that sometimes.

“Is this all you wanted to say?” his best friend asked.

“No, I…well whenever we were done playing games you would get in your bed and I’d lay on your couch and we would turn out the lights, leaving a crack in the door and the hall light on so it wouldn’t be too dark. But we wouldn’t sleep. We would talk to each other about everything we were thinking about or going through, be it religion or girls or school, as I stared at the ceiling. I can hardly think of other times in my life where someone would just listen to me so…honestly and completely, you know? And I would listen to you too. The conversations we’d have were so simple and true and we didn’t really care about all those little implications and junk that people worry about all the time in the real world when they talk to another person, see? I guess what I wanted to say was that I really miss that. Of all the things I miss about home these days, that’s one of the things I miss the most.” He looked his best friend in the face, smiling in a somewhat sad way.

“I guess I miss that too…” His best friend looked down at his feet.

“So, with that in mind, I wanted you to know that I’ll always love you as the best friend that you are to me. No matter where we go or where we end up, or whatever choices we make, I’ll love you and respect you. And if you ever want to talk to someone who will listen to you, who will talk with you like we used to, I’m just a phone call away. Always, as long as I’m not dead,” he exhaled, feeling relieved.

“Right. You know you can always call me too, bro,” his best friend grinned. “Now you know it’s freezing out here. Wanna get inside?”

“Yeah, just one more thing. Do you really consider me to be your best friend?” he muttered quickly.  He was somehow anxious.

His best friend’s eyebrow shot up in a look of confusion. “Of course not.”

There was a moment of silence and stares. The eyebrow stayed up.

“I kid, I kid. Of course I do, I always will.” His best friend replaced the ridiculous look with with a simple half-smile. “Forever.”

I’ve also always felt like there’s someone out there special I just need to find and hold onto and I’ll learn my lesson and my life will straighten out in this area. But how can that ever happen when I’m like this? I’ll probably just get nervous and avoid them or make some lame excuse like I always do. Just so I can be comfortable being like this because I’ve always been like this.

And here I am writing about me and my problems. Sure, these problems are essentially about how I am with other people but this whole thing I’ve written is just too selfish.

You shouldn’t read it.

Some like to say that this is all we really actually know. They say that since all of our information is given to us by our brain, we have no solid proof as to whether or not our world actually exists. Sure, we can reach out and touch something and ‘feel’ it, but all we are doing is receiving an interpretation of what our brains have received from our nerves. Who’s to say life is not an invention of the mind, that reality is as real as a dream or a nightmare?

But we think, and that means that we at least exist; we are some sort of entity with an active conscious. There is also a gut feeling we all have, something else we ‘know.’ At some moment in time, my mind, or whatever drives my conscious, will critically and absolutely fail; I will die. Being a conscious, all I have ever known is existence, so no amount of evidence or speculation will reveal to me without a doubt what will occur when this failure happens.

Maybe religion has the right way of it. Perhaps there’s some conscious greater than mine which is the origin of everything I have ever ‘known’,  a conscious that created me out of its own righteous ‘goodness’, or maybe just curiosity. When the body I have been given fails, a spirit from within me will rise to meet this great thinking entity that floats outside of reality and I will be judged on the quality of this spirit or ‘soul’, which is actually me, my conscious. I will be helpless and powerless to control the fate of my after-life.

Maybe everything is in fact a dream and death will just be the end of a story. I will just be borne onto another reality or my life will repeat like a broken record, and I will never gain awareness of this. I will just go on existing and re-existing until the end of time, entirely oblivious of what is really driving my reality, if anything at all.

Maybe just before the light leaves my eyes my conscious will become acutely aware of its mortality and frantically fight to revive its dieing engine: my brain. My life will flash before my eyes and I’ll see everything I’ve experienced, every person I’ve known. But this will not last, and I will sink closer and closer to non-existence. Finally my conscious will be reduced to a child-like state, crying and crying and crying for the comfort of life or just someone I love. Then I’ll lose all grip on thought and it’ll be as if I never existed and pain and love and everything else won’t matter anymore.

I would like to hope that in my last moments my mind will cling to my conscious, that I will fall into an everlasting shelter frozen in time where I will know that I am dead, where I can reflect on my life and create any new world or scenario I care to imagine. I will be able to fondly recall everyone I have ever loved. A perfect dream. A heaven where I am my own god. Everything I could ever want.

Or perhaps it will be like dreamless sleep. I’ll close my eyes and my conscious will simply wonder off into oblivion, hoping against hope that the darkness will end and I’ll wake up to the morning sun of a fresh new day.

I should probably just stop thinking and go to bed.

It is out of tune, a veteran of various hands and various songs, its wooden body chipped and lacking the sheen it had while rolling down a Chinese conveyer belt. A low voice hums, adding melody to the noise. It is Marshall’s; he sits merely five feet away from the two other figures basking in the singular light of a fluorescent bulb, basting in the hot summer night. The three are sitting on a familiar old porch, its creaky wood bearing the weight of a bench with floral print cushions, a few lawn chairs and a tiny fold-out table, enough to hold up a few empty bottles.

Marshall, the singular presence that he owns, sits alone and cross-legged on one of the old plastic lawn chairs, perpetually noodling away at the guitar, old chords he barely remembers how to play.  The tunes that escape his throat are more guttural noises than melody. “I’ve just about kicked that self-depreciation habit of mine.” Simon mentions, half-lying, as he swallows a volume of lukewarm ale from a bottle he’d been holding for about fifteen minutes. He readjusts himself on the second lawn chair, watching a moth flutter towards the sterile light illuminating the scene.

“Really now?” A third, feminine voice, cuts through the heat. She is the figure lying on the bench, lengthwise so as to not allow for anyone else to intrude on her comfort, staring at the paint above her. “Last I checked on you, you were wallowing in the pits of your own inexplicable despair.” Marshall hits a dead note and grunts, half chuckling at what he just heard. “Last I checked…” she turns and faces the boys, resting her head on her hand, and her shoulder on the flowers, “Last I checked, you were crying on your bathroom floor.”

“Were you really?” Marshall scoffs, pausing again to reach underneath his chair for a beer of his own.

“I’d rather not talk about it, really.” Simon burps as softly as he can, hoping the others would ignore his slight bit of being improper. “Mia, I fucking told you that in confidence, anyway.” She shrugs and reaches towards the floor for a pack of cowboy killers, made heavier by a butane lighter. “Seriously?” Simon says to her, “I thought you quit.” After a pause, Mia shrugs again. She tosses them to Marshall, who immediately lights one up. “There’s something different about me now, I don’t really know what’s quite changed but I know it just might be for the better.”

Marshall savors his cigarette, the embers falling lightly between guitar strings. “Does that mean we’ve run out of things to talk about, now?” He places the lighter back into the pack and tosses the bundle back to Mia, who catches and opens it again. “Shit, if we’re not listening to you bitch about life then what’s the point of talking outside past midnight?” He grunts a laugh, “Guess this means we actually have to start enjoying each other’s company, now.”

Mia laughs alongside him while letting out a drag. “You know, Simon, something has changed in me too.” Simon, meanwhile, had been emptying his bottle at a greater pace. “Yeah?” He replies, half-wincing, awaiting the punchline. “And what exactly has changed?”

“I’ve taken up smoking again.”

Sad and confused,
I would come talk to you.
You cared so much,
worried so much. I hardly understood.

Now, I’m around these people
I don’t even know.
And in the darkest night of my life
I forgot about you, I was entirely empty.

I think I understand.
I want to break down and plea.
Mom, I’ve been bad
and I want to come home.

But I won’t because,
well, you would smile and know
that you are right about everything.
And you know I can’t stand that at all.

A Half-Remembered Dream 
by Joshua James
INT. MICAH’S HOUSE – BDEROOM – DAY <>
Micah sits alone ina messy bedroom. His eyes are open but he isn’t looking at anything.
INT. MICAH’S HOUSE – DEN – NIGHT ##BLACK AND WHITE SEQUENCE##
Stillness.
Micah crouches over the body of a girl with a pool of blood seeping from the back of her head. He cannot see her face.
MICAH (V.O.): What just happened?
INSERT CUT <>: MICAH GOING THROUGH HIS MONRING ROUTINE, READING, WATCHING TV, DOING HOMEWORK ONLINE.
MICAH (V.O.): Start witht eh basics. Who am I? Im’ Micah Johnson I’m an intellectual. No, I’m a college student. A community college studnet. Okay. You know who you are but who is she?
INSERT CUT <>: MICAH SITTING OUT ON THE PATIO WITH ONE ARM AROUND THE GIRL. SHE RELAXES HER HEAD ON HIS SHOULDER.
MICAH (V.O.): Is she my girlfriend?
INSERT CUT <>: MICAH IS CLEAING BAKING SUPPLIES OFF THE COUNTER AS THE GIRL WASHES DISHES. THEY’RE LAUGHING ABOUT SOMETHING. SHE SPLASHES WATER AT HIM. HE SLAPS HER ARM WITH A SPATULA.
MICAH (V.O.): No. That doesn’t feel right. Maybe she’s a friend. It feels different from taht though. It’s like I’ve know her my whole life.
SHE TURNS HER HEAD TO FACE HIM POISED FOR A COUNTERATTACK. AS SHE TURNS HER FACE IS REVEALED.
MICAH (V.O.): What happened to you, Kathryn?
RAMONE (O.S.): What happened to her? Micah, what happened to your sister?
Micah stands as he sees Ramone walking down the hallway. The young man reaches down to check her vitals.
RAMONE: Talk to me, man. What happened?
MICAH (V.O.): You’re Ramone.
MICAH: That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
RAMONE: Well, part one of the mystery is solved. Your sister’s dead.
Ramone rises to his feet quickly and hits a wall with all his might. He begins to pace.
INSERT CUT <>: RAMONE AND MICAH WATCHING TV, PLAYING VIDEO GAMES, TALKING, ARGUING, HUGGING, WRESTLING.
MICAH (V.O.): I’ve known you more than half my life. You’re family. You care about her as much as i do. Why am I so mad at you then?
INSERT CUT <>: RAMONE, MICAH AND KATHRYN WATCHING TV TOGETHER. RAMONE SAYS SOMETHING TO HER AND SHE LAUGHS AS SHE SLAPS HIS ARM.
MICAH (V.O.): We’re all friends. You’re like a brother to me…
INSERT CUT <>: RAMONE IS LEAVING THE HOUSE. HE GIVES MICAH A QUICK HUG AND ANOTHER TO KATHRYN BUT SHE HANGS ON A FEW SECONDS LONGER. THEY SMILE AT EACH OTHER BEFORE HE LEAVES.
MICAH (V.O.): …and to Kathryn. Aren’t you?
INSERT CUT <>: MICAH AND RAMONE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME.
MICAH: Can you look out for her while you two are up there? Keep her out of trouble.
RAMONE: Of course, man. Whatever you say.
MICAH: Ramone. I mean it, man. It’s her freshman year. She’s the best girl that ever lived but she can’t always see the truth about other people. I need you to keep her safe.
RAMONE: Okay. I understand.
KATHRYN ENTERS THE ROOM WITH A SODA FOR BOTH OF THEM. SHE PLOPS DOWN NEXT TO RAMONE.
Micah looks toward Ramone who has now crouched down next to the girl, cradling her head in his arms.
MICAH: If you told me to protect your sister…
INSERT CUT <>: MICAH WALKING TO HIS ROOM AND HEARING VOICES COMING FROM KATHRYN’S ROOM. THE TWO SIT ON THE FLOOR ACROSS FROM EACH OTHER. SHE TAKES HIS HAND, LEANS OVER AND KISSES HIM.
Ramone turns to see Micah and notices the paperweight in his hand.
MICAH: …what would you do if I decided to kill everything we stood for?
Ramone sets Kathryn donw slowly and begins to rise.
RAMONE: Micah, you don’t want to start this. I don’t to finish it.
INSERT CUT ##BLACK AND WHITE SEQUENCE##: MICAH WALKING TO HIS ROOM AND HEARING VOICES COMING FROM KATHRYN’S ROOM. RAMONE TOUCHES HER FACE. SHE TURNS AWAYS.
KATHRYN: No. This doesn’t feel right.
RAMONE LEANS OVER AND KISSES HER.
MICAH (V.O.): How can I trust you with my life if I can’t trust you with hers?
INSERT CUT <>: KATHRYN SITS AT THE TV WITH MICAH.
KATHRYN: There’s something I have to tell you. I’m dating Ramone.
HE DOESN’T REACT. HIS EYES NEVER LEAVE THE TELEVISION. SHE WAITS AND FINALLY LEAVES.
INSERT CUT ##BLACK AND WHITE SEQUENCE##: KATHRYN AND RAMONE TLAKING IN THE DEN.
KATHYRN: He hates this. I knew this would happen.
RAMONE: That’s okay. We don’t need his approval.
KATHRYN: But I don’t want him to hate me.
RAMONE: That’s alright.
RAMONE GRABS HER AND TRIES TO KISS HER. SHE RESISTS
KATHRYN: No, Ramone. Stop.
RAMONE: It’s alright. Just let me-
HE TRIES TO KISS HER AGAIN; GRABBING HER STRONG, TRYING HARDER TO PRESSURE IT.
KATHRYN: No. Stop it, Ramone. I mean it. Stop. Stop!
SHE SLAPS HIM AND RAMONE IMMEDIATELY SHOVES HER BACK. SHE STUMBLES AND FALLS, THE BACK OF HER HEAD LANDING ON THE HARD SURFACE. RAMONE SEES THIS AND BEGINS BACKING AWAY.
MICAH (V.O.): Traitor.
Micah lunges at Ramone who redirects him away from teh girl. They fight for a few brief moments with Ramone fending off the barrage from his old friend until he finds an opening to get control of him and pin him down.
RAMONE: What is wrong with you, man?!
MICAH: You killed my sister. What do you think is wrong with me? You took me away her innocence. Everything that made her special is gone. Every bit of faith I had in you is gone. Everything I stood for is gone. You betrayed me. I might as well make sure it stays that way.
RAMONE: You think I killed her? Why would I ever kill her? I loved your sister.
INSERT CUT <>: KATHRYN TAKING HOLD OF RAMONE’S HAND FOR THE FIRST TIME, LISTENING TO HER TALK, READING CHILDREN’S BOOKS TOGETHER, HOLDING HER AS SHE CRIES, COLORING WITH HER.
RAMONE (V.O): She’s always had a special palce in my heart. You guys have always been like a family to me but Kathryn was always a different part. My other half and that held true through the laugher, the tears, the arguments. Wtih everything that has ever been, the way I’ve felt has always been teh same. I could never hurt her.
Ramone takes his paperweight and throws it to the side.
RAMONE: At least not the way you could.
MICAH (V.O.): Clarity.
INSERT CUT <>: THE GROUP PREPARES FOR A PICNIC, KATHYRN SHOWS OFF HER NEW DRESS TO RAMONE AS MICAH FINISHES PUTTING SNAKCS INTO THE COOLER. RAMONE SMILES AND SAYS SOMETHING TO HER. SHE KISSES HIM. MICAH LEAVES THE ROOM. KATHRYN FOLLOWS.
KATHRYN: What’s so wrong with us? Can’t we all be happy? The three of us together.
SHE WAITS FOR AN ANSWER BUT IT DOESN’T COME.
MICAH (V.O.): The things we don’t say, sometimes are the most damaging.
KATHRYN WALKS BACK TO THE KITCHEN. RAMONE IS BRINGING THINGS OUT TO THE CAR WHEN SHE WALKS BACK IN THE ROOM.
KATHRYN: I think I’d rather stay in today. I’m tired.
LATER THAT NIGHT, MICAH IS WORKING AT THE COMPUER. HE PICKS UP A PAPERWEIGHT AS HE IS LOOKING THROUGH A BUNCH OF JUNK FOR SOMETHING. KATHRYN WALKS TO THE FRONT AND STARTS TO WALK BACK UPON SEEING HIM BUT TURNS AROUND AGAIN.
KATHRYN: You know, I can’t be without you. I’m not that strong. I need you. I’ll always need you but I need Ramone to.
MICAH: Shut up.
KATHRYN: I love him, Micah.

FADE INTO:

The man across the table simply looks at her. His hazel eyes don’t pierce her, don’t examine her, and don’t question her. They simply look. She is used to this. Without any interrogation from him, she continues to expand her statement.

“Well, I’m sort of like you, I think…maybe…” she trails off, trying to collect her thoughts into something tangible and communicable. This is one of her worst problems. There is silence. The man has a gaunt face topped with short brown hair. He’s as skinny as a stick; it’s obvious through his thin, black cotton shirt and his smooth gray slacks. He is leaning back in the metal patio chair provided by the Mexican restaurant, under the glare of the spring sun, entirely comfortable. Finished plates of food sit on the table waiting to be cleared. The woman is still silent, with a face full of thought. The man still looks at her, expressionless.

“You see, it’s just like this, like right now. I’m so unsure of myself. You’re never like that. No, you always know what you are doing and you are always sure of your own competence. I have trouble just stringing sentences together sometimes,” she takes a pause. She has more to say, but just as she opens her mouth to talk a waitress walks by to collect the emptied plates. The woman is flustered by this. As soon as the waitress is turned to head back towards the kitchen, she resumes the outpouring.

“You’re so self-defined. I get the impression that you sincerely don’t need anyone in your life except yourself. I’m like you in the way that I want to be alone sometimes just to be alone, but I always break down, I always need people. I doubt that ever happens to you. If you were the last person on earth I bet you wouldn’t even give a damn. You’d live life with the same mindset that you have now,” she is speaking rapidly, consumed by the subject, “You’re so indifferent to everyone around you yet you are the happiest person I have ever known. Why can’t I be like that? Why can’t I have your perfect, solitary soul?” her voice is loud, sad, and saturated with longing.

The waitress returns with the check and then scurries off, afraid to interrupt. The man takes out his card and fills out the check, then looks back up at the woman.

“I don’t love you. All I love is that icebox you would call a heart and I want it for myself,” she finally stops. She’s trembling. They sit quietly until the waitress returns the check and scampers off again. The man grabs his card and stands up, clearly with the intention of leaving.

“So you’re just going to say nothing, huh?” she says coldly.

The man is putting on his jacket and he’s not looking at her. “If you keep feeling like this, you’ll become everything I’m not. You’ll be a shell full of nothing but melancholy,” he says calmly as he finishes putting on his jacket. He then turns and looks at her with an expression in his eyes that could be described as an attempt at emotion.

“I think I love you. I can’t entirely tell. I don’t need you. I hardly think about you. But I feel something for you, no matter what emotion you may feel for me.”

“I…” she tries to say something but she ends up just smiling a sweet, perplexed smile. The man silently looks at her once again while he stands next to the table, the strange look in his eyes now gone. After a minute or so, he walks off to his car.

In the car, the man thinks about the woman’s appearance. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t properly picture her face or her clothes. Colors blend in his imagination; he’s looking at something half-formed, something that is not completely defined. He sighs and turns the key in the ignition. As the engine roars to life, he wonders why anyone would ever want to be just like anyone except themselves. He really can’t comprehend that.

Which makes it all the more confusing when I realize that this laptop, the one I’m clicking away at right now and the one I’ve had for about six months now has a spot on its spacebar that’s been worn down by my constant usage. It’s an island of matte smoothness in a sea of barely recognizable texture. It’s a noticeable transition every time I run my thumb over it, and every time I wonder how exactly I managed to make such a weird little scar on the plastic. Maybe that just speaks to the quality of the laptop itself, rather than my own actions contradicting what I seem to believe in my head.

But it’s getting more often now, so that’s why I believe it; my fingertips are becoming transient and hitting keys adjacent or below to the ones I intend to hit, jumping the gun and adding spaces before I finish my words. It’s even worse when I consciously make an effort to type, when I shoot a glance at my nervous fingers to make sure they’re in line, they seem to flinch and trip over themselves. I suppose that’s better than slurring my spoken words without the aid of mind-bending substances.

I keep losing track of time, as well. Currently, when it’s supposed to be “Winter”, the air outside can range from “Thanks, Climate Change! Now I Can’t Feel My Face!” cold to “Is It Really Eighty Degrees In December/January/February (Probably Not, But It Sure Feels Like It)” warm within the span of a week, and that doesn’t really help in terms of continuity. (What it does help in, however, is developing my ability to come up with song titles for Sufjan Stevens.) My body now likes to assume it’s a week or month later than it actually is, and you’d think I’d be used to it by now, living in a city where April air likes to turn up around February.

A few days ago, when the weather downshifted to a lesser extreme, or if you prefer a different metaphor, when the weather decided to lessen its manic depressive tendencies, it was a welcome change of pace. I was shooting the breeze with a friend of mine in my car, and later at a 24 hour eating establishment, and for once I was hit with the sense that things were pretty decent. I’m young, my only stresses being the looming threat of true financial independence, straggling chapters of Dostoevsky and introductory statistics, and petty personal problems such as a nagging feeling that I should be going out and being the social creature that nature intended me to be.

See, there are times where I have a tendency to hate a lot of things. Consequently, there are times where I have to sit back and realize that everything isn’t all that bad sometimes, and lately, that seems to come easier than some sort of malaise or general feeling of being downtrodden. So when you also take into account that in the past, the only way I got any sort of writing done was when I was feeling particularly disgusting, not having that malaise cast a shadow over my disposition makes it particularly difficult to be productive in my more creative endeavors.

It’s probably better for me in the long run not to spew out ridiculous amounts of prose that pretty much amounts to the same set of ideas recycled through a bunch of fictitious characters and slowly descend into the pits of despair, even if the theme of said ridiculous amounts of prose essentially boils down to me lamenting my inability to get laid. I’d rather not move to Paris for a bit and eventually swallow buckshot.

Instead, I’ve gotten better at talking, going out there and taking this thing called optimism out for a spin, setting aside the misanthropy and leaving the can of hatred to rot in the back of the pantry, next to the Cup o’ Noodles I’ve had since I thought it was an honored privilege to sit in the front seat of a car. There’s little reason for me to get caught up in trifles now, more reason instead to consider things to be somewhat okay. Of course, the superstitious side of me likes to assume that the mere act of publishing this will lead to some awful times ahead. I was once told that the archaic definition of “awful” was tantamount to “full of awe”, so I’m just hoping the universe is using an outdated copy of Merriam-Webster’s.

And if it doesn’t, well at the very least I’d get a lot more writing done.

And when I see them, I pick them apart from the noise, jumbles of dead trees and India ink, coffee stains and dirt. They’re not small enough to be considered inconsequential, not large enough for all the fuss, so I sit there with them firmly clasped in my palms. My fingers unfurl them from handwriting to the shortest distance between two points, the strands curl back into their original shape the moment I let go. For a few moments they glisten in a peculiar way, underneath the lamplight they seem almost ethereal, strings taken from the very fabric of reality at the points where it begins to fray.

And how it seems to me that you are nothing more than that, some sort of anomalous individual formed when the  molecules arranged themselves in that particular way; someone with two hands, two feet, and two eyes all designed to contradict everything wrong that I still consider right. But how it seems to me that you are so much more than that, undeniably human and indefatigable in your pursuit of nothing more than the ability to see yourself in the reflected light of glass, puddles, and photographs without any twinge of remorse. I’m left only with remnants, my own explanations of everything you are, everything you want to be, residue gracing the ridges in my fingertips. Coarsely smooth, quietly fragrant.

And when a  wind carrying your scent lazily drifts past me, I’m fooled. For one happy instance, I’m fooled into forgetting the long-gone clouds of wrinkled fabric, arranged in a manner conforming to your body on an uncomfortably barren bed. Pressure starts to build in the wells of my chest, pushing its way outwards, puncturing vessels and cracking ribs in a ruthless ploy for self-pity. I’m carried away by the gusts, abused by the lightning, pelted and pricked by the downpours. There is a part of me that succumbs to those depths, saved only by reassurances scattered throughout the sea.

And though I’ll experience days that seem like two; twenty four sets of sixty segmented and lived in such a way that makes them feel like forty eight, those agonizing waits between dial tones or arrival times, they have little bearing on what carries the weight. There is an irrevocable sincerity in what is felt as the memory of your presence spreads through my skin, even if it is prefaced by notions enough to confuse and disorient the truth. Your presence will always be inherent,  implied by the leftovers of visits cut short. Our lives are offset by those imaginary lines in the sky, established by Greenwich Means, that divide our world into simple zones. While you think in Eastern Standard Time, I’m thinking in Central, accompanied only by what you left an hour behind you. The strands of hair, scattered in the most random of places, little reminders open to my interpretation.

And that’s enough for now.