She'd begun to keep a mental tally of all the little gestures and omissions that indicated he might be pulling away: a sudden, obsessive interest in his phone, a distracted, mechanical quality to his embraces, increasingly vague replies to her questions and unreadable facial expressions. Each occurrence triggered a small alarm in her brain which kept her body into a near constant state of restlessness.

Though she lay beside him in bed each night, she imagined he was on his own blanketted island where placid, impersonal waters guarded his private thoughts and dreams from her. The harder she swam towards it, she realized, the further it shrank into the distance.

Frustration was replaced with panic then, as if she were in actual danger of drowning: she'd already paddled too far out, she thought, and didn't have the energy to turn back.

Her small form is obscured by the tall grasses and overgrown milkweed. She squats, balanced on her thin legs, tousled blonde hair blowing free and wild with the wind.

“Sarah?” I call, but she stays crouched, low to the ground.

“Sarah!” I call again, and she half-turns, her fat, toddler-cheeks dimpled and delighted.

“Look mama!” she chirps. She lifts her cupped hands high into the air for me to see. I walk closer to crouch beside her, kissing the tangled locks and open brow.

She shrugs me off impatiently. “Look what I got mama!” Tenderly, cautiously, she unclenches her small fist, displaying its contents with glee.

“Look! Look!”

I look down on the crushed legs and beautiful, crumpled wings giving a final fluttering effort.

“A butterfly! How wonderful” I smile and she returns it fully, filled with pink-cheeked childish wonder.

there's a painting

by Vincent van Gogh

of a bar all in reds and yellows

a master work

before 90's hip hop could be blasted

into the eardrums of clientele

they say he painted his best work

in a psychiatric hospital

in two years

where he was self-admitted

just like in a dive bar

it's important to know

when you've had enough

and you need to decompress

inside what will be

infamous

Did you see his hand on my thigh? Did your headphones mask the words he whispered in my ear? I was eleven, walking home from school. How could he mistake me for eighteen? Did you? I look just like your mother, is that why you looked away? Were you ashamed? Aroused? Curious? Annoyed? Laughing? Did I deserve it? So disappointed. In you, for looking away. And in me, for knowing I'd have done the same. Lest it happened to me.

Happiness is a warmth. It has varying intensities, but it is some type of warming sensation.

It's the color teal, a mix between blue and green, producing a calm yet bright color.

It tastes like chocolate, milk chocolate—dark chocolate is too bitter, milk chocolate is sweet and smooth when it swirls in your mouth or goes down your throat.

It feels like that one type of hug when the person hugging you just keeps holding you tighter and doesn't let go and you don't want to let go and you just feel safe and at peace for the first time in a while.

It's hearing a person's laugh, and you start laughing because they are laughing, and so you're both laughing and you won't stop laughing for some time.

It's just the little things that make you smile and get you through the day.

I am an enigma, scarcely do I know how to express my intricacies & complexities.

Everyone else sees a wall around me, so high, that they cannot scale.

How do I let people know that although I want to be seen, I cannot afford to be seen always.

I like a lot of space. I enjoy drinking in the peace and serenity that nature seems to produce without fail.

Sometimes I feel like water, swaying all over. Other days, I feel like clay, sticky and crude.

Some days I beckon to my inner self to stand up for myself, seeing as I play pretend doormat.

On days like this, I reckon with the me that wants to lay still and let the world go by.

Some call me depressed, others say I speak with wisdom that is from another age.

I have come to accept that this enigma is me, and I am an enigma.

If you find someone, who call you “my friend”.

It’s a treasure.

Like a flower between the weed.

Don’t feel shame because of yourself. Don’t feel shame because of your knowledge.

You can feel how much good the sincerity. The most people think, I know what is a friend.

Less people know what is important. Not your friends’ number, not common fun’s number.

Respect, understanding, count on you, you count on your friend. Not only make time for your friend, you give importance to your friend.

My heart’s pounding, I check my pulse and it’s normal. But it’s fluttering too, like that time I tried ecstasy when I was 19.

I’m flushed in the face, and though my stomach is in a half knot, my lips are sealed in a smile.

My skin is warm, too warm, so I take off my hoodie. Yet the suns instant kiss on my bare arms quickly surpasses agreeable warmth. It doesn’t matter.

This beach, this sunshine, the present lack of breeze, it’s all irrelevant. The way the sun twinkles a billion tiny flashing reflections across the ocean, the sparkles as marvelous as the entire galaxy… it’s remarkable. Yet all logic defies me, and science and chemistry only told me half the story.

I’ve heard about this before. But to feel it, to really feel it, simply doesn’t make sense. Nothing does. And it doesn’t have to.

You’re here, here by my side. My overthinking mind and overzealous heart require no reconciliation. Out of 8 billion other souls, our souls coincide and collide with colorful electricity.

This must be spiritual synergy. The glimmering waves mirror your eyes, shiny black irises exuding diligence and grace. Eyes that speak volumes to me, no words necessary.

Though we’re in paradise right now, we could be anywhere and we’d still be smiling. The North Pole. Hollywood. Space. It wouldn’t matter. Because I could die at this moment and I’d die happy.

Perhaps this feeling will crash like a shore break: collapsing into itself with thundering force, then dissolving into foam before it’s sucked back into the ocean of subconsciousness. Maybe it will slowly erode like the cliffs that we sit upon, chipped away by time, until one day it’s simply gone.

I hope it radiates like the sun, persistently providing abundant luminosity. Giving light for things to grow and helping everyone see. A beacon of constant new beginnings embodied in passionate burning energy.

My heart is swelling, I feel a billion invisible twinkles in the air between us. And yet my hearts still pounding, similar to anxiety. It doesn’t matter. Because you tell me your heart is pounding too, and you feel fluttery.

people see you a different way i do

a beast in me that no one else sees

broken pieces put back together untamed

a mishappen monster

she goes through life knowing she will never be enough

i don't understand

Don't trust their judgements

or believe their lies

i see me

even if thats not what you see

My body and mind are at parallel ease. Existing in a state of acceptance of what has been and what is to come. A smile absent on my face, not because it doesn’t want to be there but because it doesn’t need to be there in this moment. My consciousness is taking in what is before me, not turning towards other moments, and is quiet.