He’d waved awkwardly, peach skin a messy blur just beyond my face as he looked at each of my eyes for any sign that I was listening. I blinked and smiled with a weightless laugh, which satisfied him, but without weight a laugh doesn’t have value, does it?

No, I wasn’t truly there at all.

I didn’t want to be rude. Honestly, I looked forward to the next male connection. But I couldn’t get over it: his question, “What’s your favorite color?”

It wasn’t a bad question. Many married men do not even have an answer prepared for those words. But suddenly I wasn’t there, and I was here. With you.

“The countertops? Will they be white marble or cherry wood?”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter, so long as I can cook our two girls breakfast while you hold my waist behind me. So long as you keep looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

You grinned knowingly, though. You knew how your eyes heated and glowed. How you smiled so soft and precious. How you made my heart skip and shudder at the pace of your laughter.

What is my favorite color?

It used to be green, deeper than a sea of grasses in spring. Than basil or pine. Those glowing green eyes.

But it hurts to think of green anymore.

“I wish it was winter,” I blurted.

He had been talking. Had been in the middle of the word job or food. It was natural that he was confused.

I continued, “I like to see the world reset. In the winter, I mean. When everything dies, and you know it’s only a matter of time before it all grows back again.”

He nodded slowly, and I felt my cheeks warm as I grabbed my coffee and pretended to sip at it.

Painful. It was painful to seem like I'd been listening to him for the last fourteen minutes and forty-three seconds when I couldn't even recall his name. I wanted to feel what I once felt for you; I couldn't wait to feel as if I belonged in another's embrace again. But I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to start over.

I didn't want to learn his name or talk about favorite colors or unravel years of carefully and particularly spooling myself into you. To go back to knowing a stranger--not a man--was the most wretched and horrible thing I could think of.

He'd been talking again, this time about the weather in hopes of relating to my randomly voiced opinion about the most freezing, painful time of year. But I stood. The chair screeched in surprise at the audacity of my interruption, and a few heads turned.

As I walked out, the only thing making my stomach dip was the guilt of being such a selfish lover.

In the center of some abandoned midwestern town stood a water tower, tall and unyielding to nature's lashing winds and thunderous storms. On the outside, its white paint was chipped, revealing steel aged with rust. And within, its surface was covered in layers of vulgar art and scribbled messages. The walls couldn't read, but they knew that the writing likely wasn't marked out of their appreciation.

The tower yearned. For what, it didn't know. It wasn't meant to be a sentient thing--even though it had become so--instead planted to serve a small, once-thriving people. But they grew old--aged, as it had--and they were not made of the sort of metal and concrete that could withstand the brutality of the world. So, the tower watched them wither away, until no people were left in the lovely little homes and swishing grasses, the only evidence of their existence being the four-legged structure looming overhead.

At one point, the town's name was written there, but the tower could no longer remember what it said, the letters ripped away by the harsh breath of a restless sky and scraping hail. Lately, it noticed, that sky seemed more devastated; it raged and sobbed and battered--sometimes day and night. The loss of its admirers brought forth the absence of those red and orange hues the tower often loved to watch fade into darkness. But the tower had no voice, and it could not tell the sky that it was not alone.

So, the tower, dried and empty and voiceless, could only endure the tantrums from above. And it waited for whoever came, hoping for another kind and wrinkled face to gaze upon. But in recent years, the only eyes it saw were full of youth and mischief and rebellion, peering into its empty chest and climbing within. And the hands along with them pelted the tower with stones. The laughter that echoed sounded as if it knew it shouldn't be there, but decided to be anyway.

The tower hated those young eyes, aggressive hands, and taunting laughter. Hated that it could do nothing as they came and went. So, when a girl crawled into the empty cavity where water and joy once swirled together, it wanted nothing more than to finally crash and crumble, finished with the anger and despair.

But she appeared with a tool made of wood and strings. The tower hesitated, waiting for whatever infliction the girl would begin. But she simply sat, and the tower peered closer into eyes that were young...old. Young, and old. As if she were one of the tower's beloved, wrinkly faces despite her unblemished cheeks and full lips. And she seemed to take the tower in, swallowing every detail and imperfection with those new yet mature eyes. What had she seen to have such experience in those rings of green and blue?

The tower soon discovered that the girl was a weaver. Not one of fabric, but of the songbird Mrs. Finley so frequently spoke of to her farmer husband. The songbird of a tropical world in a place called Africa. She did not look like any bird the tower had seen, but it had never known a place called Africa, either. It must have been her, the songbird. The weaver.

There was no other explanation for it as she used her hands to begin crafting such music. Her fingers brushed the strings on that tool, and it did as she commanded, humming and coaxing a melody so rich that the tower felt it through its stairs, its inlet, its drain. When she sang, there were words of solace and redemption. For the forgotten places of her world.

The music flowed through the tower like a gentle breeze, caressing its belabored walls. Each note was a message of hope, compassion, and understanding. Those walls trembled, as if recognizing a long-lost friend.

The paint sprayed onto its surface, which the tower believed to be permanent, slowly melted away, replaced by the delicate, haunting sounds that wove through every crack and crevice. If the tower had skin, the music would have been a thread sewing old, gaping wounds. Its concrete was a desert, absorbing every chord with desperate thirst.

By the time it was over, the girl had dug into a pack and pulled out something soft and warm. Though it could never feel such a thing, the tower knew of exhaustion and sleep. And it recognized it in the girl as she closed her eyes and did not wake until the sun rose once more.

When she finally did, the girl played one more song.

And the tower relished in every second.

It did not have ears, but it was glad that it could listen.

Raindrops clouding the pane,

A beaded curtain,

Glistening and shining,

Twirling down the glass.

Silky shadows mimicking,

The choreography of each sphere,

On the carpet

Which burns like sandpaper

Under her feet.

Until they form a puddle,

In the grime and filth

At the sill.

The bottom of the window,

Which has not been cleaned

Since they moved in.

The window is cold,

Its damp chill soothing

The heat that rises in her chest.

Calming,

As the clouds reach through

And gently brush her hair

Through the pane.

Looking out,

She would not mind the aftermath.

Because the raindrops,

A beaded curtain,

They also run--and spiral down the glass,

To flee from whatever chases them

And join one another in asylum.

Together.

For the raindrops which create a beaded curtain,

Which concealed her truth for years,

Now join one another,

Together.

Together,

In the filth and the grime and the mold.

The rain cannot be isolated,

Each drop's path joined

At the final destination,

Embracing in the mire.

Refugees who have bonded

Under the crashing storm,

Lurking,

Threatening,

Suffocating,

Overhead.

I am a healer, sworn guardian of life, bound by oaths that cannot be broken or obscured. I am obligated to sacrifice my hours, my youth, my indecision for others. I am obligated to sacrifice time with my own child to serve another, and another, and another.

There is honor in the words I once promised to believe in and to uphold. Before, I would have breathed in that promise—lived it. I would have died defending it and seeking justice against those who broke it.

Now, as much, I expect my colleagues with any shred of integrity to seek it against myself.

And I do not care.

The man in the chair squirms, rope tied tight enough around his arms that I’m sure several abrasions will be documented during the autopsy. His face is a deep red, the pressure from screaming and sobbing pushing the blood into his skin. But his tears should allow for some relief—or they would, if they were not also hot with fear and rage.

I think of my rounds as a medical student as I weigh the 1911 steadily between my palms. I was nervous then, hands shaking and unsure while I applied blood pressure cuffs and pricked fingers for glucose readings.

The Colt .45 was my grandfather’s before he died of myocardial infarction. Heart attacks and the elderly—a common deadliness, as many know. I was surprised to inherit what little assets he owned. I never knew him.

Neither did June.

The .45 is suited with a pearl grip, white and heavy like marble. So beautifully crafted that my mother's late father hardly ever used it; it simply rested in a glass case in his bedroom that smelled of dust and shaving cream. When I found it there, I never intended to use it. I wanted to sell the thing, being that I never had an interest in guns.

But the stranger before me—he was a stranger to June—is sniveling and whining and pleading. And nothing makes me want to land a round into the eye more.

Did June cry? Did she beg?

Those questions are what steel my spine. Straighten me. Leave me without doubt or hesitation or shaking hands as I raise the weapon and aim it at the brown ring around his pupil. There's even a small smile dancing on my lips, fading in and out while the physician wars against the childless mother within.

"Please," he cries. "I didn't--I never should have done it. I'm sorry. Please!"

I pretend to consider, the only sound being his breath wheezing in and out in anticipation.

I pull down on the hammer, and the breathing comes to an abrupt stop at the sound of a click.

"You can spend eternity worrying about how you'll never have the chance to touch my daughter again."

I am close enough that—with only practicing once—his eye can no longer be identified, replaced with a gaping hole that looks something akin to what I feel. I lower my arm and walk over to his slumped-over body, careful to not step into the growing puddle of red. My white coat brushes my calves when I stop before him, and I blankly press my gloved fingers to the flesh covering the carotid.

There's no pulse.

There's no one to report time of death to, but I had to be certain.

Where I'm going, I cannot predict the direction of the wind, and I'm glad for it.

Forgive me if I sound histrionic, but I am headed off to craft a story.

I was five years old the first time I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. And since then, I've had this notion ingrained that I must always have a plan for what I should do next with my life. With no other alternative offered, starting at five years old, I couldn't get enough of shooting up vision boards and snorting lists. What a drug forethought became--something not just useful but now akin to taking a deep enough breath to survive the next second.

The worst part about it was that I hadn't known I had an addiction. It was just life, and everyone else was doing it, so it couldn't be that bad. It took an overdose on twenty-six college applications for reality to hit me; I'd spent months vomiting up what I'd been told to say on essays and shivering through the night after wondering if my GPA would be worthy enough at some ivy league institution.

When I detoxed, I realized just how severely I'd poisoned myself and just how much my dealers had profited from it.

I will be a writer, education and its indomitable debt be damned. And my favorite part about it is that I have no idea how.

I am still in recovery, thinned from improper nourishment. But I've started eating seconds when it comes to a lack of expectations and a surfeit of arbitrary moments.

Now, I will craft a story where the direction of the wind cannot be predicted, where the birds and the wolves follow nothing but a feeling, and where the words I write next are guided by something between peace and spontaneity.

Cheers.

To no plans--and to no foreseeable future.

I turn nineteen on the twenty-first of June, and I am scared of death.

Some fear of nothingness afterward. But I am saved, and I know this isn’t what awaits.

Some fear leaving behind their mothers and sisters. But life is short, and I’ll see mine soon.

Myself…I fear its permanence, as I’ve never been exceptional when it comes to commitment.

I still have yet to see which territory will win the war in my head—who will decide my career: House of Medicine, Writers, or one of the lesser lords joining the fight in hopes that one of the others will fall. I still have not married or adopted children. I still do not know if I will find friendship that lasts.

So much to give myself to.

I am so young, but I am so very afraid of death.

I can only hope what it will be like, as hoping for its prevention is futile.

I hope it doesn’t hurt.

I hope I don’t recognize it or realize it’s coming.

I hope that it’s like being carried from the car to your bed when you fall asleep as a child, embracing and gentle. And when you’re under the covers and the light is flicked off, you can still hear everyone’s muffled voices talking and laughing through the wall.

I hope I learn to stop thinking about it; I don’t want to waste every second of my life fearing about how one day, I won’t have one.

Please, Death, put your training to use. I don’t want to see your face. Come quick as wind and silent as snow.

I think I’d like to be smiling when you arrive.

I'm an open book,

But it's short.

I hovered over the doorbell yesterday,

When the sky was golden,

And the air wasn't too hot or too cold.

There was a dog,

Chasing bubbles

In the neighbor's yard.

The perfect day

To ask you to flip open my cover.

To bring my pages to your nose,

And smell how much they've aged

Since the last reader visited.

To feel the dust that coats page thirty-nine,

So thick,

You could trace a line in it.

No one's made it there before,

But I would be honored to share it

With you.

If it makes me desperate,

I don't mind--

Even if it makes me shudder.

I've spent too much time waiting,

Shelved and ignored,

To be embarrassed about begging.

Yet my edges trembled,

On your doorstep,

In a breeze that swept in,

That convinced me to blow away,

Never to be touched or explored,

As you trace every line,

Every word,

Every letter.

It has always been my bane,

To writhe and weep,

For that connection,

Unable to ask for it.

That tug,

A twined rope,

Stretching from your racing heart,

To the center of my story,

As you uncover more plot twists,

And discover my history

With raw hunger and adoration.

But this world does not exist,

In which your every inhale

Lifts every evident spec of neglect

From the unspoiled paper

Past page thirty-nine.

The world that is reality:

Rich with beauty,

Skin soft and sinless,

Eyes of honey

Like caramel dripping

On a sunset-lit canvas,

And delicate freckles to kiss underneath,

Is void of my description--

A synopsis not worth purchase

Or even donation.

The story is not interesting;

It won't hypnotize you

Or make you feel entranced between the lines.

But I promise,

On the last of my withering ink

Which is crumbling away

With each hopeless day,

If you'd just open the door,

If someone would open the door,

I'd make it worth the read.

I told him that I hated walking his dog.

The Bernese is strong and excited about everything and the leash is quite useless if a squirrel is stupid enough to show itself. The muscles in my arms and shoulders ache from every simple stroll through the neighborhood, and my throat stings from the constant begging and pleading and bargaining. His white and brown face, droopy and slobbering, always gives me that look over his shoulder until I give in and dig into my coat pocket for one of those bacon treats. A nightmare, indeed.

I complained about the task once more this morning, groaning about the frosted, slick sidewalks and that elderly woman south on Wadelyn Lane who always fusses about making sure that Baxter doesn't "conduct his business" in her grass. The winter was finally starting to take hold of our small town, and I despise the season and all of its freezing, windy facets. But Sam listened to every word, patient and amused, and just smiled warmly before kissing the line where my skin ends and soft curls begin. He told me he loved me and that he'd be back soon, and that he promised I wouldn't have to walk Baxter anymore once the snow arrived. And then he left.

Left me with the stubborn old giant that I swore gave me a mischievous smile through those floppy chops and waited at the door, bushy tail swishing. I glared at the muddy bootprints Sam left behind and prepared for the biting temperatures with my beanie and a thick jacket. And with reluctance, I grabbed the fraying purple leash hanging on the hook by the front door, clipped it onto Baxter's collar, and prayed that it would last another day before beginning the perilous half-mile journey around our suburban community.

The cold pierced through every pore in my face as soon as we walked down the driveway and past the tire tracks leading in the opposite direction. Baxter huffed happily and trotted, that tangled tail of fur wagging lazily and upright. Already, I could feel him taking advantage of the fact that I was his chauffeur as my torso was tugged ahead of my legs. My breath puffed out little clouds in front of me when I grumbled his name in warning, tilting my head to the sky beseechingly. But he acted as if he didn't hear me as he carried on, lifting his nose in the crispy air to take in all of the wonderful smells. My own nose twisted after we passed a pile of fresh, steaming dung on the sidewalk; I could only redirect Baxter's attention to a lilting bird's song and some sirens in the distance at that point.

Eventually, we passed the elderly woman's house, and she was conveniently seated on her porch with a mug of coffee giving off grey tendrils of warmth. Her eyes were narrow with sternness and judgment while she watched us pass. I just took my free hand out of the comfort of my pocket and offered an awkward wave with a tight smile. She didn't repay the gesture, but apparently found it in herself to nod.

But of course, the ever-argumentative mountain dog had to stop to sniff the dying blades of grass. My eyes widened at the unexpected audacity--even Baxter doesn't edge the widow's temper. I gave a gentle tug on his leash, which gave no assistance as he kept his snout down, inhaling whatever could possibly be so interesting in an aggravated neighbor's yard.

"Sorry!" I shouted. "We're working on his manners!"

She just stared at me expectantly, one leg crossed over the other while she waited for me to make Baxter obey. I grabbed at the side of his collar, making him look me in the face. I spoke through gritted teeth:

"You are embarrassing the hell out of me. Let's go."

He looked at me blankly, unmoving when I went to guide him along. I growled.

"Baxter, now."

Nothing.

I sighed, pursing my lips so hard they went numb in the freezing air.

"Okay, I will give you two bacon treats if you listen to me. Two. Treats."

The strange look the old woman gave me from across the lawn didn't go unnoticed, but I pretended not to see it, instead savoring the small victory when Baxter's tongue fell out in response to the bribe. He may be a dog, but he is fluent enough in a few select words to know when he's getting a good deal.

By the time the rest of the walk was complete, and Baxter received both of his treats, I was satisfied with the amount and difficulty of the challenges presented. The house was quiet and levels more pleasant than outside. I rewarded myself with a hot shower, breakfast in bed, and a hot cup of lavender tea while Baxter munched on his bed in the corner of the living room. Hours passed, and I prepped dinner: alfredo and garlic bread. I waited on the couch until six o'clock with my favorite reality show playing in the background.

And when he was late, I called to ask when he'd be home. I was only met with that welcoming, clever voicemail of his.

When another hour came and went, I worried about dinner, and how it was getting cold.

And finally, he knocked on the locked front door, and I was already scolding him about not answering my calls and letting a perfectly good meal go cool before I opened it for him.

But I found another man on my doorstep, all dressed in black and blue and holding his hat with both hands in front of him. He wore a pitiful face, and his eyes gleamed with exhaustion.

Baxter walked much slower to my side after my knees slammed into the muddy bootprints on the hardwood floors. He whined next to me after I screamed a cry so loud that other doors across the street opened. He laid down, pressing into me for comfort as the stranger in blue, who I'd never met before, knelt down and gave me his condolences and apologies for my dead fiance.

It was slick on the roads, he said.

It wasn't his fault. There was a young girl learning how to drive with her father.

None of them made it.

It wasn't five minutes from home.

I'm sure he was a good man.

And all of this talk in past tense...the words bit much colder than the winter that would come.

The last thing I'd said...

I told him I hated walking his dog.

-------

I never cleaned the hardwood floors by the front door.

I let the tire marks fade on their own, never parking in Sam's place.

I walked Baxter in every snow, every flurry, every blizzard.

And he never pulled or tugged or bothered the old woman's grass again.

Her name was Judith, I learned. And she loved her husband very much. He died of colon cancer in his forties, and she'd never felt so rotten and alone after the fact. But even so, after she'd heard of Sam's death, she brought freshly baked pies and home-cooked meals to that front door. And she talked for hours, every so often even sneaking a small bite of lasagna or bread to Baxter under the table. And I listened, not often speaking or necessarily kind, but Judith didn't seem to notice.

I never sold the house, and I slept alone for many years after.

But when the couple down the road moved in, I watched the young woman walk their German Shepherd, and I laughed every time she struggled to make him listen or relax. I kept bacon treats next to the mailbox--with a sign that said take one. And I bought salt every winter.

Spreading it on every home's driveway before the sun rose on Wadelyn Lane.

I lit a candle in the wind

By the beach

The spray of every crashing wave

And the breath of every breeze

Threatening the love aflame.

I curl a hand around the wick

Afraid but still walking forward

Into the sand

Into the darkness of the night

That reveals nothing.

Hopeful that the fire will live.

But every grain beneath my soles

Quivers and nearly slips away

You stand not twenty paces out

Holding an empty lamp and oil

To protect and nourish my light.

There is nothing more I desire

Than for you to crave this too

To feel empty in your chest

And untethered to the earth

Without me in your arms.

Hopeful that your fire will live.

I cry out into the wind

The candle clutched to my chest

Wax pooling down my palms

Burning and blistering and bubbling

And still I offer safe harbor.

Your smile makes the flame waver

My heart follows suit

Lungs compressed and narrowed

But I risk the journey

To you.

Hopeful that our fire will live.

Don't blame yourself. No one sees it at first.

She's a fifteen-year-old girl on that frozen park bench, sitting on her hands to keep them from getting just as cold as her nose. Your eyes catch sight of the way her hair is dampened and unkempt. Her clothes are torn, hanging off of her body to reveal the story on her skin that she wished no one would ever read. And her face...it's covered in the grime of the city's malice. Did she fall?

No one sees it.

Her heart is cracked and bloody. The red consequence that pours from it is becoming frozen in these conditions. If she were to tell you that she is growing cold, you would reply you were too. It is, indeed, time for the leaves to take their last leap from the arms of the near-barren trees. Clouds should soon stop crying and instead begin to throw fistfuls of white during their seasonal temper tantrums. But then she'd take you by surprise. She would correct you and say, “No, from the inside. It isn't the outside world causing frost upon my skin. It's my heart, a glacial virus causing my light to fade out into an eternal darkness.”

It's all happening so fast in front of everyone's eyes, and still, no one sees it. She didn't fall as once presumed. She was pushed. No one saw it. You didn't either. Not at first. Not until her heart - which had been freezing since he'd first laid a hand on her - cracked. Not until it made a sound so deafening that no one was able to hear another.

It was as if lightening struck the ground directly in front of you, and finally, you stopped to pay attention. You were alert. You were looking around for an answer to the question no one has understood: "Why?" And finally, you had the morality to focus on investigating what lay beneath the silence that had followed the explosion of ice from her heart.

You realized that she was alone. No mother. No father. No sibling in sight. When you approached her, feet crunching atop the chunks of ice that had flown from her insides like daggers - warnings to stay away - you saw the dirty tears staining her cheeks. You were left to wonder what had happened. Why was she so cold? Maybe she didn't fall. She didn't just stumble because she was clumsy. She was shoved into the calloused, tainted hands of the world.

And now you stand in front of her. She sits still on the bench, staring straight ahead with no life left in her eyes. Your chest is level with her face. She doesn't move. You could tell that whoever this girl was is no longer here. A person once known is now a person someone knew. The tears are taking turns rolling down the flushed, red tinted hills named cheeks, but her face is becalmed. A snowflake fallen from the sky lands on her cheek and turns to ice instead of melting away.

In a whisper, you ask her what's wrong. She emotionlessly makes eye contact. Your heart clenches and your stomach drops at the visible vacancy inside of her.

“I wandered too far,” she replies. “Mother told me the streets weren't safe. She told me not to cross the bridge...I did. I crossed." She looks away again. "I can't go back.”

You ask her why. You offer to walk home with her. She could get cleaned up. All better. She'll be fine tomorrow once she gets a new pair of socks and a warm bath. But she rejects you, pushes you away. She says she knows now that strangers are not to be trusted. She can't cross the bridge. For if she does, she will let the wind push her off. She will beg the breeze to be strong enough to cause the ground to disappear from underneath her. She will hit the ground and fall into a pile of beautiful crushed bones and pain. It sounds beautiful to her, anyway.

Don't blame yourself. No one sees it at first. Not even you. Maybe you were distracted or just wished to mind your own business. But if you held the candle a little closer, you could see that what she really yearned for was a hand to hold.

She was manhandled. Used. Who she used to be was shattered into a thousand pieces and brushed under the rug for no person to ever see again. If they would just look a little closer, they'd see that she is crying out for help. She is not begging to be looked at. She is not begging for the eyes of those around her. She is begging for someone to pull her up from the top before it's too late. She is screaming for someone to toss the rope down before she's stuck in The Pit forever, all alone as she grows colder and colder from the inside out.

All alone until she becomes absolutely nothing.