you took my hand and showed me how the sun’s light can warm instead of burn,

and just for a while, i felt what it is like to be sheltered unconditionally.

i looked at you in awe, with all these untamed feelings coming over me like a rush of the ocean’s waves sweeping me under for just a moment.

just a moment.

for once, being under the current of someone’s love didn’t feel suffocating and heavy. as I came up not for air but to see your eyes gazing back at me, i knew it would be foolish of me to turn and walk away from this cosmic dance between us.

so, I continued to dance with you on the rings of Saturn, allowing my heart to be set free.

Twenty years. I was real for all of them. Yeah we had our fights, but we were kids, we worked through it. So why then was this different? I can tell you why. You left fear enter your mind, a voice told you I was going to get angry. And you know what, I would have, because you pointed out something I was doing wrong. But we are human. Everyone gets angry, but we talk through it like friends.

You said I was never there for you. NEVER THERE FOR YOU! I was there when your dog died. I was there when you were in plays in high school. When your appendix was inflamed. When you went to college, I visited you at college! I helped when you had your first anxiety attack. I was there when, your now boyfriend, was looking at tinder in front of you! You were crushed, I was there!

I went away, learned some stuff. Got all high and mighty thinking I was top. Sorry. But how was I supposed to know you were angry when you never said anything! You blamed me for four years of anger and anxiety. And when we talked, I apologized for that. But seriously, I was the cause of that for all those four years? BULL! You wanted to find a way, an outlet for everything and you picked me.

You choose fear over a friend. I needed a friend overseas and every time I reached out, you found another excuse. I had flaws and if you told me, I would have tried to fix it. I felt fear over there, but I didn't blame anyone for why I felt that way regardless I was alone for most weeks.

So I asked, "do you still want to be best friends?"

Your response, "I never labeled my friends, I see them all the same...."

SO I am on the same level as your boyfriend? What!

Then said, "I will text you when I'm ready to hang out again." Then you complained to your mom about how I stopped texting. I WAS GIVING YOU SPACE LIKE YOU ASKED!

You just found another reason. Twenty years meant something to me, clearly sixteen only meant something to you. You did a better job of acting those last four years, fooled me.

Something you never knew and won't know. Remember, this isn't your fault. We create our own emotions, but I also didn't have a friend to talk to. I don't hang out with people after work or on the weekends, all my friend left or fell into the shadows. A week after we talked, I held a gun to my head. It wasn't loaded because I didn't know the ammo it took. Why did I do it? Because between the broken arm, the deployment, readjusting back to society, and losing my best friend, I thought "WHY THE HELL SHOULD I BE ALIVE?!"

I miss you ever day, I miss playing video games with you. Throwing a football, watching movies or playing with my dog. I miss texting you, but I'd rather have a friend who calls me once a year then lies to my face for four. I hope you have a good life. I'm sorry you won't be a part of mine.

if you’ve ever snuck

into a buffet

the ones at strip malls

overlooking the

parking lot or a brick wall

and lied about

having a hotel room

or being allowed

free food

just for some lobster

and canapé's and soup

I hope you know

you don’t have to wear Gucci

or have much money

to convince everyone else

that you’re living

the best life you’ve been given

Paint me in the darkness

Shroud me in it

Inky charcoal lines

Swirling grey cheekbones

I want watermelon seed freckles

Smattering a rigid ribcage

Stardust glimmering, captivated by its own reflection

And when the ash falls against my cheeks

Softer than a dove’s feathers, darker than a raven’s back

Etch that into the canvas too

Ringlets of smoke staining silk

Confetti falling from the sky, cracked beaks and decayed rinds

Carve graphite into blades

And bleed the darkness dry

Unable to turn and face him, I just didn’t know how else to answer Feather’s question about why I had been so focused on throughly checking the whole house to the point of raging frustration without my telepathic sentences sounding more fragmented. Truth is I was starting to question why I had felt the need to do the search in the first place. I hadn’t found a single device like the ones G-M scientists had been developing. My suspicions or rather my assumptions driving my instincts to go on high alert just didn’t seem like a good enough reason because it had failed me for the first time, despite the fact my instincts had saved my unit and I on many occasions in the past. This left me to the brink of tears and breathing to go into shallow, short breaths from complete stupidity and confusion. Feather’s hand continued to rest on my shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze to urge me to turn around to face him. I couldn’t yet. Not until I could straighten the whirling confusion in my mind, though that seemed like a distant possibility.

But gosh! My instincts aside, what was the real reason I searched the house so fervently? I mean, the twins took every precaution to make sure G-M operatives couldn’t follow us after Surge collected and destroyed all of the bugs installed throughout my childhood home this morning. And like Surge had said earlier in the van, this area was surrounded by granite which would cause the operatives’ tracking equipment to malfunction… although, I reckoned it would only do so to a certain extent anyways but what did I know about electronic devices in comparison to him and his ability to detect and manipulate electrical devices and currents.

But, I hoped with all my heart that this place would keep us safe longer than the other houses we had moved to. Giving me time to properly grieve, grow some roots like a normie and not this obsessive and nonsensical paranoia I was feeling. Oh how I wish my mom was still here, she would know the reasons and would give me the knowledge and comfort to calm my frazzled nerves. But much to my dismay, she would never be here again, despite how much I swore I had heard her voice back at our house. It still didn’t feel real, like any moment I would wake up from this nightmare and find myself in my childhood bed, hearing her and Dialect downstairs preparing food. But it was real and it knocked the wind out of me that I nearly crumbled to the basement floor, cradling my knees beneath my arms, and crying so hard that it would flood the basement. Not literally because I don’t have that ability, but that’s neither here nor there. And falling to the folly to the emotions of losing the last blood relative in my life wasn’t going to bring her back, as I wiped away the tears starting to form. God, I hated feeling so vulnerable though at least it was only Feather who was seeing this.

Yet the burning agony of her death residing in my chest still made me aware of the intensity of his gaze upon me. It was as though the unexplainable connection he and I shared wouldn’t allow me to not be aware of him, not matter what my emotional state I was experiencing. Regardless, the array of emotions currently rolling in together within my mind and chest seemed to be wrapping themselves so tightly, I was afraid I might gasp and release a sonic boom. I don’t if I could handle or forgive myself if Feather or the rest of my unit became deaf, permanent or not, or worse their deaths— not to mention damaging the new house

Random as this next thought may sound, how again I wished I had been born a normie, then I wouldn’t have to worry about such things like causing harm to those I cared about from a single sneeze or whisper. If I was a normie, then maybe my parents would still be together and alive. I would be able to speak aloud and not be forced to communicate telepathically. The only things I would have to worry about were whether a boy liked me, going shopping with my friends or whether I would get into a good college…. You know normal girly stuff. Not whether if I could assemble a weapon in under 15 seconds, be forced to see and perform the atrocities I couldn’t erase from my memories or if operatives had been able to find my unit and me. I know what you might be thinking, if I had been, I would never have met any of the members of my unit— the only family I had left. And I would never have met Feather, my best friend in the whole world.

That last thought alongside Feather’s continual gaze on me, my cheeks filling with heat, that perhaps the reasons I was searching for had something to with the suspicious feeling I always had with every move that this new home— new start was possibly too good to be true. Or maybe it wasn’t. Either way, I still couldn’t find the strength to look into Feather’s beautiful dark brown eyes to see his reaction to my erratic answer, so instead I decided to revert to my usual habit by averting my gaze up at the ceiling to listen to Vapor opening the front door with muffled speaking to a strange man before shutting and locking the door. The heavy waft of pizza took the place of the three aromas that had nagged me for I don’t know how long. I looked towards the small windows and noticed the darkness of the night had arrived without me realizing it.

Had I been frantically searching for that long? I thought only to myself.

But this habit of avoidance was one Feather knew all too well, more than anyone in my unit. It was way to avoid any possible judgment of my foolish behavior or assumptions. Though I knew perfectly that he, of all the members of our unit, wouldn’t judge or tease me about because he knew I usually had a good reason behind my actions, regardless if they turned out to be wrong or correct. And without saying anything and knowing I would tell him when I was ready, he wrapped his arms around me. Except… this time instead of turning me around in a platonic manner, his embrace came from behind. An electric tingling immediately rushed through my whole body, sending goosebumps and my heart beating so loudly along with it. I strangely welcomed the intimacy of the gesture, not caring about our unspoken agreement of being just friends as I leaned further into him until we seemed to meld into one another. I tilted my head until it rested on his chest as my hand began trailing up his shirt until my fingers were intertwined with the back part of his hair by his neck, his long black hair starting to drape over my face. I could hear his heart was racing like mine. It was almost calmed me to know I wasn’t alone in feeling how strangely right this felt and a bit nervous about what it would mean if we fully gave into whatever this was. We had never share this level of closeness before until twenty-four hours ago, but I didn’t want it to end. To my surprise, he didn’t show any sign of pulling away. Despite the indication given by both of our racing hearts, I had a strange need to know if our unspoken agreement of a platonic relationship had been thrown out the window by delving into his mind.

Unfortunately and quite peculiarly, I wasn’t able to get a reading. It was as though he had found a way to shield his thoughts from my telepathy. I would have asked why, but I was too exhausted from all the searching throughout the entire house to ask. I allowed his natural earthy musk and his embrace wash over me until I no longer felt paranoid, frustrated, or crazy. Time seemed to stand still until it felt as though we were the only two left in this world and any outside sound, apart from our ragged breathing, was blocked out. I felt like I was home, filling the void of my mother’s death and the abandonment of my childhood home even if it was only temporary. Yet the magical spell, Feather and I appeared to be under was unfortunately broken when we heard the sudden whining of the top step and heard Dialect speak, that Feather and I pulled away and acting like the moment we had shared never happened.

“Pizzas here!” Dialect nearly shouted with glee as she crotched on the top step so she could stare down at both of us.

“We’ll be up in a minute,” Feather said, looking towards Dialect before she stood up and exiting, leaving the basement door wide open, as I turned my whole body to face him.

Every evening at exactly 7:30pm our doodle, who's nicknamed Nutty, puts herself to bed by hopping up on the loveseat and dramatically kicking off the pillows. She then rolls upside-down pulling her ears and eyes back. This is all followed with the kind of huff only a ridiculously spoiled dog could do.

An hour or so later I put her to bed but not before a pouty child routine where she goes limp and pretends she's a rock. Once up it's off to our king-sized cushy latex foam bed where she lays perpendicular with no respect for our space.

I love her so much!

family.

i don't know if thats what i could call the people in my house

other wise,

i'd be calling my house a home

it is a warzone

and i am on my own

against my sister,

who is the sniper

shooting stinging, and simmering

comments

supporting my mom, the leuitanent

everything she says goes,

no questions

no conversations

let go of yourself if you don't like it

my brother is more normal

a soldier in the storm

hes not targeted, nor is he aiming

but hes still offected by the war

then there is my dad,

hes the nurse picking people up in stretchers

covering skeletons with a white sheet

underrated;

underappreciated

by most but surely not me

and then there is i

where do i stand in this mess?

im the prisoner they picked up

captured in the middle of night

a cloth gags me

suffocating my words

throwing out my freedom

our relationships are sometimes faulty

but everything works in the end

a deconstructed household

can be put together to make a family

probably

I used to be a violin,

A cello I am now.

I used to sit in arms of trees,

today I'd break the bough.

It isn't in the weight or size

the change most finds itself,

but how much of my me I let

to be put on a shelf.

I am in Milan, alone and waiting for a plate of Chicken Limone. I am wearing the most beautiful dress I had ever seen, had ever worn and felt against my skin, hugging my physique. It is black and embroidered with an organic rainbow of flowers and sprouts from my chest to the very bottom of the skirt. The first time I tried it on, I was much younger and naive. I was prom dress shopping with my mom at Macy's. I fell headfirst in love with every stitch, but it was hundreds of dollars.

The dress and I met again tonight, many years and lonesome nights and lovers later. The night and the twinkling, conversing stars flood the terrace I am dining on. They tell each other I look beautiful tonight from lightyears away.

Thank you, sweetness.

I sip a sweet white wine and it drips onto the rose embroidered on my dress, soaking through it, the skin covering my sternum absorbing the sugars and grapes and hands of the man who squished them. My heels are off and my the bottoms of my feet and my unpainted toes brush against the cobblestone that is still a little damp from the sun shower earlier in the day.

There is a small group of string instrumentalists and an accordion player in the corner behind me. Their song caresses my face with a rough, but gentle hand. It was written for me by someone who pines for me. I will be coming home soon, but the stars, the strings, the garden on my gown, and the potion I'm sipping on have a few more stories to tell me.

Dire eyes on the prize with a dead set gaze destined for amazement. A focused mind pierces the matter at hand, laying waste to the hocus pocus of blind chatter while setting ablaze the folly of bland dismay. Look at me when I talk to you. Don't fall prey to distractions demanding personality refraction. I have something important to say. Nothing you do can change the way I feel about it, so you better listen. Look at yourself with glistening eyes, charmed by lies, subject to my bold utterance... I told you no harm would come, but you didn't hear a word I said. All you saw was fluttering eyelids, me stuttering, mind blips barely able to finish a sentence. It's ok. Do your thing. I will be hear unseen, nothing.