Fairytale

(This is an edit of an old piece. The changes that I made seemed to make the story a lot better. My teacher liked it, anyway.)

He was walking down the street in the pouring rain.

Everything looked gray. He couldn’t bear to turn his head and survey the houses on either side of him, but everything he could see in front of him was gray. Thinking this way made him feel sort of pathetic, like one of those kids that popular bands write songs about and then the feelings of the kid get commercialized and all the happy people who listen to the radio hear the song and begin to think they’re sad just because they wish the song was written about them. But maybe thinking that way made him one of those happy people who listen to the radio.

God, I really hope not, he thought.

It was Sunday morning. He was tired, but had stayed awake all night. When the sun came up, he felt re-energized, and picked up his guitar to begin to try to sort out some of his happy feelings with the six strings. It was a couple hours later when the phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. He heard the pat of his sister’s feet across the linoleum of the kitchen floor.

“Hello? Oh, hi, Mom.”

Silence.

“What do you mean?” He heard the break in her voice. It made him uneasy.

More silence.

“Oh… Alright.”

There would have been more silence, if not for her heavy breathing and the violent drip of tears off of her face.

“We’ll see you when you come home, then… Yes, I’ll tell him. Alright. I love you, too- bye.”

He had moved himself to the empty corner of his bedroom. Grabbing his legs and pulling them close to him, he sat in a small ball, staring across the room at the heavy wooden door. It was locked. There was no way he would let that girl into his fortress so she could assail him with news he knew would not be true. It was all part of her plan. They just wanted his castle. They were playing make believe, and none of this was real, and the evil Queen of a foreign country was coming to tell him something terrible so he would be distracted and she could take the castle.

The Queen was knocking. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Adam?”

He stayed quiet.

“Adam, I know you’re awake. I heard you playing the guitar a little bit ago.” She still had tears in her voice, and he could see her red eyes and wet face in his mind. He closed his eyes. This was not real. This was make believe.

“Listen, Adam… Mom just called. She’s still at the hospital.” She sniffled. He knew this was hard for her, and he wished that she knew it was make believe, too. They were just pretending. She was just the evil Queen from the foreign country. In real life, everything was okay. In real life, they were happy.

“Dad died a little while ago, Adam.”

A sudden burning overtook his throat and chest, and he buried his head in the space between his chest and his knees. He hated real life. He was sixteen, but he still liked to think he could get away with playing make believe. Right now it wasn’t working.

“The surgery yesterday went fine, but then this morning, he just… He just crashed.”

Crashed. Like he was riding a bike or something. That’s not how it was at all. This was life. Not a bike ride.

“Adam? Can you please say something? Or-” Her voice broke. There was no way he was going to open up his mouth.

He heard her footsteps again, walking back to her bedroom. He lifted his head back up to look at the door. There was nothing on the back. Nothing hanging on any of his walls. He had no posters of girls in bikinis, no black and white pictures of his favorite bands. Just four white walls. It was simple. He could imagine things on his walls if he needed to.

The burning had yet to leave his body. He did not want to cry. He needed to walk. He quickly stood up and put his shoes on, and then headed for the front door. His sister must have heard him- he heard her bedroom door open, and she began to say something, but he would not stop. Walking outside, he found that the sky was letting out all of the tears that he himself could not let drop. He ran down the front stairs and started a slow walk when he reached the sidewalk.

And here he was, walking down the street in the pouring rain. He didn’t see anything interesting to look at, and the grayness of the landscape was allowing for his thoughts to overtake him. But every memory was tainted with his desire to paint it over with something that wasn’t real- something make-believe. He didn’t know why he did it. He didn’t know why it was so easy for him to believe that a car was really a spaceship, that his bedroom was his own castle, that it was dangerous for him to go into the basement because of the ghost. Why couldn’t he grow up?

“Hey, kid.”

He turned to see a girl sitting on the front steps of a porch. “Me?” he asked, gesturing to himself with a confused look on his face. She better not try to sell him anything.

“No, the other fool who’s walking down the street in the rain. Yes, you. What’s the matter?” Her voice was tough, and she had a tinge of an accent. He thought maybe it was Brooklyn, and it wasn’t every day you found a Brooklyn girl on a porch instead of on the corner.

Shaking his head back and forth, he turned away from her. “Nothing. Nothing is the matter.”

“Aw, come on. Something is the matter. Here, why don’t you take a seat?” Adam paused for a moment, but walked over and sat down next to her. He could smell cigarettes, but she was obviously wearing some kind of musky, sweet perfume on top of it.

She held out a hand. “Amanda.”

He took it and shook once. “Adam.”

Sure enough, she pulled a pack of Marlboros out of her back pocket and pulled one out. “Want one?” she asked, holding it towards him.

He didn’t smoke, but he took it. “Thanks.”

“Need a light?” She reached over and lit the cigarette up for him before he could answer. He inhaled and coughed. Smiling, she put the pack back into her pocket and took a hit of her own cigarette. “Not a smoker, huh?”

“No,” he responded, still coughing.

“Just inhale a few more times, and you’ll get more used to it.”

Instead of saying anything, he just nodded his head and inhaled again. Once. Twice. Three times. There was silence for a few more minutes, and then she spoke again, her hard voice breaking the soft misty hum of the rain.

“So what happened? You look like a zombie or something,” she said. He smirked. Zombies. It was a zombie apocalypse, it was just him and this stranger, this sickly scented girl, left to carry on the human tradition and fight the evil that was suddenly taking over the world. Her voice broke through his thoughts. “You’re scaring me, kid. First you’re a zombie and now you’ve got some creepy smile on your face.”

He didn’t want to remember what was wrong. His face fell.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t even know you, you know?”

“Yeah.” An inhale. “I know.”

A few moments of silence fell between them, as well as drops of rain falling from the edge of the small and decrepit porch. One. Two. Three. Drip. It was acid rain, falling from a deep black, polluted sky. Adam quickly drew his legs and arms under the full cover of the porch. The quick movement jostled the silence. He wanted to get away. Standing up, he stuck his head out from under the roof of the porch to investigate the sky, forgetting for a moment the danger that was so real moments before.

“Going home?” she asked. Folded limbs, bare arms on denim legs, with tan skin and the lightest blonde hair. It was the first time he has really looked at her.

“Yeah. Home.” Prison, he thought.

Her tired eyes somehow matched the sympathetic, and yet unknowing smile that stretched across her mouth. A princess, he thought, she’s been sleeping for a thousand years and maybe I can wake her up.

Adam leaned in and kissed his tobacco princess.

Once. Twice. Three times.

 

An Update

This is my Final Poetry Portfolio for my Creative Writing class. The Gatsby poem, Prove vs. Sonnet, and Unfamiliar Territory are found poetry pieces. Some of the others are just edits of old pieces.
I am not proud of my work.

 

bed, n.

I. The sleeping-place of men or animals.

1. a. A permanent structure or arrangement for sleeping on, or for the sake of rest. In some form or other it constitutes a regular article of household furniture in civilized life, as well as part of the equipment of an army or expedition. It consists for the most part of a sack or mattress of sufficient size, stuffed with something soft or springy, raised generally upon a ‘bed-stead’ or support, and covered with sheets, blankets, etc., for the purpose of warmth. The name is given both to the whole structure in its most elaborate form, and, as in ‘feather-bed,’ to the stuffed sack or mattress which constitutes its essential part. (A person is said to be in bed, when undressed and covered with the bedclothes.)

b. Often used somewhat elliptically for the use of a bed for the night, the condition or position of being in bed, sleeping in bed, the time for sleeping, etc. Cf. also the phrases under 6.

Heartbeats dance quietly into the waterway of my ear, which lays on your chest. Darkness surrounding us both and the only sound I can hear besides your thump thump blood gushing and inhale exhale oxygen is the fan in your window whirr whirr whirr whirrrrrr. An occasional car down the street, and it seems so strange, seems so strange, four o’clock in the morning. Right after, you breathed “I love you, goodnight,” and mere moments later there was some slight amount of twitching. You are asleep, and I am awake. A sleep, a deep sleep, a sweet sleep, a sweaty sleep, a quick sleep, a short sleep, a good sleep. A wake, a sad wake, a haunting wake, a long wake, an alone wake. It used to bother me so, but I’ve grown awfully fond of the quiet where all I hear is your thump thump blood gushing and inhale exhale oxygen. The fan isn’t too bad, either. Whirr, whirr, a white plastic cat purrs in your window. After a while it occurs to me that we breathe together, you and me, our breath is the same, and it scares me. Maybe I’m not breathing at all maybe I only breathe because of you maybe if you stop breathing I’ll stop too. Then I remember the day where I was scared and you were passed out and I sat across the room from you with my head on my knees arms wrapped around my bent legs staring at your chest which simply had to keep moving up down. I am a professional at loving your life and ensuring that you keep it moving. Call me “Coach.” Thoughts falter when you talk in your sleep again. I may never be able to hear exactly what you are saying, but I would bet money that you’re telling me you love me in a language no one has discovered yet. I’m hearing hundreds of new words each night, different conjugations, different parts of speech, you’re a genius, baby, you finally found your own way to tell me you love me, too.

My eyes have been closed. I open them. No longer feigning exhaustion. I peer up at you through eyelashes that are still caked with mascara. Head turned away, eyes shut, my slim messiah, my softly dreaming Dionysius, to anyone else you would seem indifferent, but I know you are just asleep and your arm is still wrapped around me. To prove anyone else unbelieving, I squeeze your fingers and instantly instantly instantly there is a squeeze back. Exhale. Lips to shoulder. Eyes close.

Eyes open. I will never sleep. I am cursed to stay awake and love you. Turning turning turning over, tightening tightening tightening your grasp on me and my heart swelling swelling swelling. Has nighttime ever been so sweet? The glow in the dark stars on your ceiling might as well be the real thing and the glow of our cell phones in the dark might as well be the glow of luminescent bugs keeping the lover lying awake in the bed some company. The whirr whirr whirr of the fan might as well be gentle wind and your bed might as well be soft ground, sand, a bed of leaves. This all comes so naturally to me.

 

Untitled

Coming to us in a flurry, the news reached us as we stood three women, out together, cackling together like the fates and sharing a bond that we passed between us like some mystical eyeball. (Mine, not yours, ours, not theirs, mine, mine.) Shock. We did not cut this thread. Your thread. Denial. No. Running to the car. No. What? This did not happen. Denial.

We have no tissues. Unpreparedness runs down our faces. Someone finds a ball of cotton white, an eye, our all knowing eye, and we pass it between us. Smudge, smudge, liquid all over our knowledge, breaking it down, transforming it into the unknowing, the unseeing. Pass it on. Whisper the secret, pass it on. Wipe your eyes, pass it on. Pass what on? No. What?

Wet, our faces are wet, our eyes leak. Continuous worthless proclamations of the infallibility of the statement. He did not, he could not have, cut his own thread. Our grandson, our nephew, our cousin. A son, a husband, a father. What? No. I knew it, I knew this was going to happen. The oldest of the three is the wisest. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Lord.

What? No.

 

 

The Great Gatsby

“I’d be a God Damn fool to live anywhere else.”

Wouldn’t you?

On Sunday morning, while church bells rang in the villages along shore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on the lawn. James Gatz- that was really, or at least legally, his name. Something made him turn away from the window and look back into the room. Outside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder along the Sound.

Our white girlhood was passed together there. The Sound. Reunited, we talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian colonial mansion overlooking the bay.

This isn’t just an epigram- life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. However, he managed to smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave troubles of the Montenegrin people. All these people came to Gatsby’s house in the summer. I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life.

“I’m going to have to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.”  She’s locked herself in her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again. I was feeling a little sick and wanted to be alone. He had little to say.  He paused. “I see you’re looking at my cuff buttons.” I hadn’t been looking at them, but I did now. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half darkness.

“Beat me!” he heard her cry. “Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward.”Her pocketbook slapped to the floor. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” he said. Through all he said, even though his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something- an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago.  Involuntarily, I glanced seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of the dock.

Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.

 

 

She Lays

She lays. In the crib, the hospital-mandated plastic wall see through tall unnatural crib, perfectly pink and new with no hair and a powerful set of lungs.

She lays. In my arms, for the first time, this small creature, so weak in her new body, but with such a grip on me that she is so strong- only a small fist wrapped around my pinky finger, but my entire life suddenly whipped into a new orbit, around a new sun- or daughter.

She lays. On her stomach, on the pale tan carpet of the living room, pulling herself forward towards some toy- I don’t know what it looks like, because all I can see is her, so strong, pulling herself, pulling.

She lays. A smile across her perfect, round face. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and the sweetest plump cheeks. Little angel child, no wings, but the cheeks are just so round.

She lays. Laughter in the air around her. Walking now, a big girl now, in big girl underwear, asking big little girl questions. Why is the sky blue? Why does the princess always marry the prince and not a different prince? She wanted to marry that prince, Arriana. Oh. Well why?

She lays. Her feet across the grass, running toward me, leaping upward, totally unbound by gravity for the briefest, briefest, best moment. Summertime means we fly kites and play hide-and-go-seek in the backyard. Can summer last forever? she asks.

She lays. The big fat bright neon headache yellow crayola marker against the sheet of white paper. The sun. You can’t draw a picture without a sun, she says, unless it is a rainy day. Plop, the marker goes, in the right-hand corner of five different sheets of paper.

She lays. Her head in my lap, because there is a movie on, and it is dark outside, and her five and a half year old self is tired, so tired, but not when I remind her that I could make popcorn, and then she is awake, and is asking to pour the kernels in, and yes, you can, Arriana, and she lays the smile across her face once again, and lays a smile against my own, and the popcorn pops. Pour the popcorn in the purple bowl, and she scowls. Purple is my hateful color, she says.

She lays. Across the couch, eyes drifting to a midnight close, and she looks at me and raises her still so small but still so strong arms for me to put her to bed. Walking up the stairs, she clings to me as only a small child can cling to her family. It’s a language, it means I love you, even though I’m little, I love you. Why do owls get to stay awake at night, she asks, and not me?

She lays. Little pink bed, little pink sheets, little pink blankets, little pink pillows. A strong grip on a plump, stuffed dog. I can’t sleep alone, she says, I can’t sleep without my doggy.

She lays a tiny goodnight kiss on my cheek, and laughs.

Goodnight, Arriana.

 

 

Prose vs. Sonnet

Then

so I love you

for a moment

in secret, between the shadow and soul,

they faded into the sweet darkness

as certain dark things are to be loved,

so deep,

so close,

that they were darker than the darkness,

thanks to your love,

so that for a while

without complexities or pride

they were darker than the black trees-

because I know no other way,

then so dark,

so close,

that when she tried to look up at him

(your hand on my chest is my hand)

she could but look at the wild waves of the universe over his shoulder

(your eyes close as I fall asleep)

and say,

where I does not exist, nor you,

“Yes, I guess I love you, too.”

 

 

Unfamiliar Territory

It is a witty remark that occurs to you

too late,

literally

on the way down the stairs…

the feeling of being alone in the woods.
It is a person who is ready to forgive any abuse

for the first time, to tolerate it

a second time, but never

a third time.

A way of resolving a problem

without anyone losing face.

A state of torment

created by the sudden sight of

one’s own misery.
It is a person who asks a lot of questions.

The act of doing something with soul,

creativity,

or love.

A climactic show of spirit in a performance

or work of art,

which might be fulfilled in flamenco dancing,

or bull-fighting,

etc.
It is what it means to

borrow objects

one

by

one

from a neighbor’s house

until there is nothing left.

It is that feeling of being alone in the woods.

 

She Lays

She lays. In the crib, the hospital-mandated plastic wall see through tall unnatural crib, perfectly pink and new with no hair and a powerful set of lungs.

She lays. In my arms, for the first time, this small creature, so weak in her new body, but with such a grip on me that she is so strong, so strong.

She lays. On her stomach, on the pale tan carpet of the living room, pulling herself forward towards some toy- I don’t know what it looks like, because all I can see is her, so strong, pulling herself, pulling.

She lays. A smile across her perfect, round face. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and the sweetest plump cheeks. Little angel child, no wings, but the cheeks are just so round.

She lays. Laughter in the air around her. Walking now, a big girl now, in big girl underwear, asking big little girl questions. Why is the sky blue? Why does the princess always marry the prince and not a different prince? She wanted to marry that prince, Arriana. Oh. Well why?

She lays. Her feet across the grass, running toward me, leaping upward, totally unbound by gravity for the briefest, briefest, best moment. Summertime means we fly kites and play hide-and-go-seek in the backyard.

She lays. The big fat bright neon headache yellow crayola marker against the sheet of white paper. The sun. You can’t draw a picture without a sun, she says, unless it is a rainy day. Plop, the marker goes, in the right-hand corner of five different sheets of paper.

She lays. Her head in my lap, because there is a movie on, and it is dark outside, and her five and a half year old self is tired, so tired, but not when I remind her that I could make popcorn, and then she is awake, and is asking to pour the kernels in, and yes, you can, Arriana, and she lays the smile across her face once again, and lays a smile against my own, and the popcorn pops.

She lays. Across the couch, eyes drifting to a midnight close, and she looks at me and raises her still so small but still so strong arms for me to put her to bed. Walking up the stairs, she clings to me as only a small child can cling to her family. It’s a language, it means I love you, even though I’m little, I love you.

She lays. Little pink bed, little pink sheets, little pink blankets, little pink pillows. A strong grip on a plump, stuffed dog.

She lays a tiny goodnight kiss on my cheek, and laughs.

Goodnight, Arriana.

Laying in bed

heartbeats dance quietly into the waterway of my ear, which lays on your chest. the darkness surrounds us both and the only sound i can hear besides your thump thump blood gushing and inhale exhale oxygen is the fan in your window whirr whirr whirr whirrrrrr. an occasional car down the street, and it seems so strange, seems so strange, four o’clock in the morning. right after, you breathed “i love you, goodnight,” and mere moments later there was some slight amount of twitching. you are asleep, and i am awake. it used to bother me so, but i’ve grown so fond of the quiet where all i hear is your thump thump blood gushing and inhale exhale oxygen. the fan isn’t too bad, either.  after a while it occurs to me that we breathe together, you and me, our breath is the same, and it scares me. maybe i’m not breathing at all maybe i only breathe because of you maybe if you stop breathing i’ll stop too. then i remember the day where i was scared and you were passed out and i sat across the room from you with my head on my knees arms wrapped around my bent legs staring staring staring at your chest which simply had to keep moving moving moving up down up down. if there was a professional field for watching chests to ensure that they are moving up down, i would certainly be a significant player in that game. thoughts falter when you talk in your sleep again. i may never be able to hear exactly what you are saying but i would bet money that you’re telling me you love me in a language no one has discovered yet.

my eyes have been closed. i open them. no longer feigning exhaustion. i peer up at you through eyelashes that are still caked with mascara. head turned away, eyes shut, to anyone else you would seem indifferent, but i know you are just asleep and your arm is still wrapped around me. to prove anyone else indifferent, i squeeze your fingers and instantly instantly instantly there is a squeeze back. exhale. lips to shoulder. eyes close.

eyes open. i will never sleep. i am cursed to stay awake and love you. turning turning turning over, tightening tightening tightening your grasp on me and my heart swelling swelling swelling. has nighttime ever been so sweet? the glow in the dark stars on your ceiling might as well be the real thing and the glow of our cell phones in the dark might as well be the glow of luminescent bugs keeping the lover lying awake in the bed some company. the whirr whirr whirr of the fan might as well be gentle wind and your bed might as well be soft ground, sand, a bed of leaves. this all comes so naturally to me.

Springtime

I’m in such a dark place right now, and nearly no one knows about it.
I can’t even tell you. It wouldn’t be fair.

flutter

all the windows down,
chirping so loud you cannot hear your own damn dreams,
with all this damn light pollution we can still see enough stars to keep our hearts smiling.
shorts cut off as high as they could go
and sandals worn so often (or not) that there are permanent lines from where the straps have always been,
criss cross.
towels out on the grass,
our bare asses out in the sun,
and every ten minutes i hear you cracking a new one open amidst the deep noise of the warm, full air.
sand all over the floor of my room and our mothers say we live like animals
animals out in the summer sun

Him & Her

(I think this is a short story in progress. Whatever it is, it isn’t finished and it needs to be edited, but I wanted to put it up. I need to know what you think. So if you read this, can you actually comment it and tell me where you think it should go or what needs to be done? Thanks.)

You’ll do your best to forget about me. Walk away, and don’t look back. I’ll take a picture of you with my hands and smile knowingly. The steps that I take across the hard floor make clicking noises, and the steps that you take across the hard floor make soft stomps. We have walked away from each other and you think it is over.
You thought it was over, but a few days later you hear a song and for a split second you can hear my voice flowing into your right ear and you miss me. You dial the first four digits of my phone number, and then pause. Set the phone down. Pick up the guitar. And once again, I am forgotten.
I walk home and count the bricks in the pathway leading up to my door. There are 58.
I undress, pull my hair back. Lay on the kitchen floor with my cat. Call my mother. Try to remember all of the things that I should be doing, but after I remember that I still need to finish painting the bathroom, I pick up the guitar. And once again, it is forgotten.
You are driving down a road. Staring ahead of you. Thirty miles over the speed limit, but it doesn’t matter, because there is no one around to judge. You are alone. You remember me. You pull over. There are trees, and you walk to one and wrap your arms around it. As soon as you’ve realized you need something, there is nothing to embrace that can wrap it’s arms around you and let you know it’ll be okay. You get back in the car and turn around.
I am on my bed with my knees pulled up to my chest, staring at the phone that lay next to me. It remains silent.
As soon as you get back to your street in your quiet little town, you look around and remember why you began to drive away in the first place. You walk inside your house, tell your mother you forgot something from your room, and within 2 minutes and 48 seconds, you are gone again. Smoke pours out of your car and drifts upward into the clouds.
I begin to cut things out of magazines, out of books, out of my life. I am doing my best to forget you. There are new pictures on my walls and I like to think that they help me, when really all they do is make me think about the things I knew we would have had together. I sit cross-legged in the middle of my room and stare out the window.
You go new places and learn new things, and you’ll think of me once a day and then shake your head to make me go away; your hair lifts and flops back down into place. I can see it. I took pictures. You never realized how many I took of you, and you only have one of me. The one where I am in the red dress. My hair is down and it is wild, and I’m just looking at the camera. Just looking. There is barely any expression in my face, but there is love in my eyes. You only ever liked to look at my love, but never who I really was.
My fingernails chip, my hair gets overgrown, my eyes grow musty. I never leave the house. If I venture out, the minute after I leave will be the minute your feet step across the 58 bricks leading to the paint peeling off of the door. I am trapped here.

Trapped here.

no title no title no title

I survived;

I survived the two-year anniversary. I thought of you, I almost called you. I wanted to cry, but I chose not to. I thought about what happened, I couldn’t breathe for a moment. I laughed. I regretted it. I took back the regret and accepted, once again, that what happened has happened and there is no taking it back. It is there, in my past, quietly collecting dust but still looking lovely as ever as it hangs on the wall, surrounded by all my other beautiful little mistakes.

I have survived. We both have. Now we can shake hands, breathe in each other’s scents once more, and go our separate ways.

You are-

the most terrifying thing to happen to me, because I’m not sure if you’re going to destroy me or if you’re going to make me happy and feel really truly alive again. You could so easily do the first, but the hope that I am holding in my hands right now is beating its feathers so rapidly and so eagerly that I would really love to believe that this, that you, are what is right, and that maybe we can bring the best out of each other.
You seem willing.
It’s enough to make me laugh so hard that I cannot breathe.

baby, baby, I am in love

he tells me he loves me, only me, only the softness of my skin and the curly tendrils of blonde that attack his face as we lay in bed together
         “only you”
he tells me that he’s never done this before, never felt so deeply and got lost so completely in the everything we are
          “only you”
he tells me he loves when I laugh because each time I do he can hear every memory and see every smile he has ever brought to my face
          “only you”
he tells me this is our song and I begin to live to believe that I have finally found what I have been looking for
          “only you”
he begins to hold my hand less and leave to go home before he falls asleep more
          “only you”
he tells me he is leaving, he is sorry, but he can’t breathe when I’m around
          “only you”
he tells me I’ll be fine
                   & now it is only me without you