You’re telling me to “go ahead,” but I stare at you instead. You nudge your head in the direction of the ladder. “Go on,” it seems to say. Still, I stay… Paused. Can’t move. This is déjà vu. The sound of a jet overhead sounds like ripping a piece of cardboard from the other side…
You don’t get it. Not yet. You don’t see it. A loud, exasperating sound comes out with my breath. This is what’s draining me. How many minutes, hours, days of my life have I spent consumed with this – some flippant remark you made and forgot or some deeper truth you must share to make…
The windows are down and the top is back. The dry leaves are flying all around. My hair is loose. It’s flapping into my eyes and mouth and up my nose. I don’t mind. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – my Heartbreakers – are Echoing in my ears. They’re bringing me back to myself. As…
A ten-sided wave has formed around Saturn’s South Pole. Imagine that. Imagine being in the center of that. Never mind. Don’t imagine that. Because if you do, so do I and I’ll be sick. Technically, Saturn’s South Pole looks like a vortex of death anyway, but still… I imagine Odysseus and the sea opening up…
It’s 7:17 a.m., and there’s a praying mantis on my door. At first, I spy this with narrowing eyelids and resolve to clean the porch. Save the door, I think. Let the mantis be. However, the spiders have taken over… I think it with a twist in the side of my mouth. I imagine they…
The pen trembles between my fingertips as I hesitate. This is one of my loops, I think, and something pounds in my chest. Glasses touch the keyboard. Discarded. Shoulders up. My hands cover my face – a child who thinks she can hide from it to make it go away. But it won’t. Therefore, I…
Lighten up. I’m balancing on one foot like a grey heron as I tell you. Be a lark. You’ve gotten far too serious… I flop into a pile of feathers with exasperation, and we snicker. I’m flabbergasted, I say. We love that word. I’m sitting on my bed. You’re sitting on yours. We’re in our…
The side of my face draws into a sneer, looking down on that woman who’s talking. Gosh, look at how full of herself she’s become. She’s speaking a mile a minute and with such conviction, isn’t she? But I know the real her. The one she’d prefer to hide. Me. It’s me. I’m the one…
I wanted all that ability for myself but floundered it. So I’ll have to settle for crying on your guitar instead of my own. Girls like me want that kind of determination, but it’s fickle that way. Or we are. One doesn’t simply set their mind to it and do it like that, despite what…
Kickstart my heart. Do it. I’m staring into your eyes, daring you to take action. My dad’s excavator hat flashes in my mind, pushing us to “get to work.” You know how to do it. Your hands find the gears with gliding smoothness, and you look at me out of the corner of your eye…