Through Her Eyes

In the car she rests her hand on my knee and that's when I realize I missed a hair shaving, but she simply smiles and apologizes for being so forward.

In her bed I turn away from her, hiding my shining eyes from hers that'll peer right into my soul, as she does. Her arm wraps over my body and tugs me into her folds, keeping me warm and safe. A soft pair of lips come to rest just under my earlobe, whispering a small, Are you all right?


I am not by any means all right but I say I'm fine and she strokes the hair back behind my ear to let me know she doesn't believe me.

I let myself drift into a dreamless sleep, punctuated by the occasional shift of position, after which her arms find me again and I find myself tangled up in her sheets and throws of affection. As I wake up for the twentieth time since she yelled out her window at some stranger banging cans, I notice her eyes focused on me, and the thought occurs to me that maybe she honestly does care.

You're so beautiful, she tells me. I wish you could see what I see.


I have never before met a girl who was so quick to accept how I stiffen up when a hand is laid on me, due to the not-so innocent hands that have graced me in the past. She smiled sadly and told me she could see I was scared, but hoped she wasn't the one scaring me. If words could express my gratitude when she only held me... I wish I could see what she sees as well.

Let downs

"I like you," I say quickly, biting my lip as I realize what I've let slip.
"I know," he laughs, taking my hand in his. "I know you like me."
There'a a pause.
"And I like you too," he continues. I feel my insides warm up a little bit, thawing. Maybe there's hope...

"But just not like that."
My teeth slip and I taste blood.

So-fucking-much for that...

Once a friend, now a lover.

Moments with her are like those moments in your childhood where time lays in the still wind, frozen as you wave the bubble wand across the sky and release a thousand little globes of swirls into the atmosphere. My breath catches in my throat as she smiles at me and my heart trembles like the wings of butterflies.

"I am so happy with you," she says in a whispery breath.

The flash of her melted-chocolate eyes leaves me speechless and again I'm reminded that she chose me, out of all the girls in this world she chose me, and I could not be happier. Words flow through my lips in silence, masking themselves as laughter, and I laugh with my whole body, shoulders shaking. Cheeks aching.

"I'm my best when I'm with you," I murmur.

Her fingers sweep across the couch cushions to tickle the back of my hand, so soft and graceful like rays of sunshine. She brightens my day, as corny as it sounds. She is my raison d'etre. I'm alive for her.

Make each day count because it's one more day we have together. 
Smile with your whole heart and laugh with your whole soul.
Sing with passion. Live with passion. 
Be the beautiful girl you are. 


I am beautiful because I am hers. She lights me up from the inside, inky waves of sunlight that bounce around in my hollowed-out core. She's filling me with happiness. I'm bubbling over.

She really is alone

"I got a compliment today," I say to the silence of my bedroom.
"Jackie liked my shirt."

Around me, the silence nods.
Yes, it says. Very nice. 


I beam.
"Thank-you."

Her(e) Today

She cups the edge of the world in her hands, blowing little ripples into memories before releasing the sand-like pillars of wisdom into the air. As she watches her existence blow away with a whim, her heart begins to tremble in its cage of ribs, thick with regret.

Do I want to?


In front of her is empty space; tendrils reaching out to accept her into a thousand lost balloons and the laughter of forgotten children.
Behind her is her childhood stretched out in gum wrappers and torn-apart teddybears, flashing neon lights that warn her away from The Light but she steps forward, she walks on...

We tried to hold her back; grabbing her thin arms while she fought us with teeth bared. We screamed Reasons Why at her, trying to convince her otherwise.

Today she is free.
Today she makes choices.
Today... today could be the last today, never a yesterday, never to see tomorrow.


Or not.

27.

"And she deserves to rot," I overhear them, talking behind my best friend's back.
I turn around, glare, but they don't see me.
"FUCK YOU," I scream. From across the street, they look up.
They smile, flash the finger, and go back to their business. Or, not really their business, but they seem to think it is.
"YOU TREATED HER LIKE CRAP! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? HOW DON'T YOU SEE THAT? YOU TREATED HER LIKE CRAP AND MADE HER FEEL GUILTY WHEN SHE HAD A SMALL, TASTE OF HAPPINESS."
My best friend isn't even aware of this, but people seem to hate her for reasons unfit. I love her. I love her, and fuck the world for not understanding that.
No, she does not, in fact, deserve to rot. She's my best friend. My sister. The only reason she didn't dump you sooner was because she didn't want you to kill yourself. She felt guilty EVERY DAY for even existing, because you made her feel that way. She complimented you, and you told her you were TOO TIRED to compliment her back. TOO UPSET.
But did you even once consider that every time you did that it hurt her a bit? That every time you did that, it made her feel like crap. And when she'd say, "I'm happy today," you'd tell her how many times you cut yourself up and fucked yourself over. And her smile would vanish.

I know you're going to hate me now.
I don't care.
I choose her over you.
She's more important.

A Girl (in six sentences).

When you walk into a crowded room, all I can hear is your footsteps, and the currents running through my veins as your soft skin grazes over mine. I've committed your laugh to memory, so the fluid peels can wash over my flesh whenever I think of you. Your eyes flash curious smiles in my direction, causing my timid heart to seek refuge in my lung. You are the calm amongst my storm. Tomorrow I might talk to you. Or maybe we'll continue to hold on a minute too long while passing art supplies, just to see who's brave enough to let go first.

Red Wires

Like wires in the sky, her cuts overlap, running up and down her thighs in every direction.
It's mad, like New York City on a Friday night.
I asked her once to stop, and she said, "Hold your breath."
Her eyes shone, but dying light, really. Like a light-bulb that's about to flickerflicker out.
"Please," I said. She opened her mouth, inhaled, then stopped breathing altogether.
The grey walls behind her reflected her solemn manner, and I had to think back to when she'd painted them a year ago. She took down the millions of photographs that lined her walls and painted until nothing was visible. Slowly, things disappeared from her room. Her desk, her tv, her bookshelves... Even her cat stopped coming in.
She frowned, and breathed in finally, not really whole-heartedly, though.
"Can you hold your breath your whole life?" she asked. I didn't answer. "Neither can I."

The perfect girl for you.

She looks at you with this emptiness, and you worry that if you rest your hand on her shoulder, the noise will echo around inside her cavernous body. She is stalagmites and stalactites, dripping down and reaching up for something, for someone, to love her and make her feel right.

"Kiss me now," she begs you, but you turn your lips away and brush them against her forehead instead.

You see her emptiness, you see how it fills her and stuffs her up like a teddy bear, too tight for her skin but loose like a baggy sweatshirt. She's become a shadow girl now, afraid to leave the darkness because the light burns those who lost their purity. She is silence now, curdled milk in a baby's mouth and that moment right before you scream.

She makes your insides ache. She haunts your daydreams. She digs up under your fingernails, pushing into the vulnerable stretch of skin with her sharp words and tapping into your veins.

You bleed for her, but you're so afraid of breaking her that you let her break you.

And then you realize, with eyes so tired from wishing, that all her emptiness wasn't empty after all, it was a thickness of moments she'd collected over the years. It was everyone else's memories that she'd stashed away for later. She's a soul-sucker.

She's hollowed out and in.

ZackgoesHEY

Zachary watches the light fade from the junk-yard that is his life. Metal skeletons and broken things are the only furniture to keep him company while he lights up.
Zachary knows that smoking is bad. But doing speed, that's a little worse.
Still, who's here to stop him?

After getting a good hit, he turns away from the window and looks towards his cavernous apartment. The electricity's out again, he notices. But that's fine. He'll just make a fire in the trash and burn a few candles.
From outside, Zachary hears some yelling, and then the sound of a car alarm going off.
Who'd be stupid enough to park their car here? he wonders.
Within that moment, he has to laugh.
His life is so...pointless. It's not like he helps anyone, not like he cares about anything at all.
He's lost anyone who ever loved him, if there ever was anyone to lose in the first place. From the beginning, his mother couldn't support him, so she handed him off, to someone who handed him off, who handed him off.
It was a cycle, and Zac learned to take care of himself. Eventually.

For a second, a small breeze sweeps in through the window, precariously edging it's way along the walls of his dingy apartment. It smells like the gardens at the foster home he lived in for two years when he was 8. Like blue violets and blue grass. All of it, sweetly tuned to the fire-light bugs that swam through the air carelessly nearing midnight.

"Fuck," Zac laughs, pulled at the edge of his sleeves. "Fucking hell."
For a moment, Zac considers grabbing a jar from the kitchen and getting something to drink, but instead, he sits down on the beat up couch and puts his feet up on a green crate.

It's not even worth it, he decides. I'll just be dead in a few years anyway. 

Princess of Somewhere Else

She knocks a cat out of the way with her foot, disturbing his feast of a moldy plate left over from dinner a few nights ago. The dust on the tattered lace curtain makes her sneeze, startling the cat who'd moved on to a few peas ground into the antique rug. Shoving aside a well-used fly strip, she peers out the dirty window. The garden down below is grey with neglect and growing over the stone wall that separates this house from the world.

She imagines she's really a princess in her tower and the bushes sport blue roses. People walk up the street with gifts, lighting up as they see her smiling down upon them. She gives a slight wave, knocking a fly into the sticky strip and breaking the illusion.

She turns around. The path through the walls of boxes and old kitchenware suddenly seems even smaller, squashing her against the window. She can't breathe. Her chest hurts. The cat claws at her leg and she whimpers, taking off through the winding maze of this bedroom to the solace of the long airy hall.

If she closes her eyes and leans over the banister that stands above the grand foyer, she's almost somewhere else.