Tag: fiction

Where are you from?

Virginia. DC area, Arlington.

I’m sure you get this question a lot, but do you live close to the cemetery?

Uh, yeah I’d say it’s about a ten minute drive…

EECS Building, 3:30PM, 11/21/2024

i met you for the first time as a stranger. we talked about the weather and your father and the new prodigy and the death of our favorite restaurant, like we were seventeen again and you had crawled through my bedroom window and into my arms. as if the world had not stopped spinning, a planet so big and full it hurt to laugh. as if i am not sitting on your gravestone, a quiver in my lip and a tremor in my chest, whispering to the soil to keep you warm in place of me.

---

You’re gonna be the best—oh look! The sun is out!

AADL Downtown, 12:00PM, 11/12/2024

it was a weed. i wanted to call it pretty but it was a weed, a dandelion beaming with the blush of the sun. quick to bloom, quicker to rot. against all odds it has conquered the impossible, leaves outstretched in heavenly embrace. what wouldn’t a flower give to be appreciated? if i had the chance, i would sit on the cobblestone and watch it grow. if i had the chance, i would name it after you.

---

There are a bunch of spots down there, it’s like Hogwarts!

Nickels Arcade, 2:00PM, 2/2/2025

after Marty Rubin: “lies bewitch us, if we want to be bewitched”–

i have inherited an incurable insomnia from you, in the way your absence keeps me up at night. sleep is a luxury you have stolen–you leave me with nothing more than pity, a memory woven in moonlight and encased in spider’s silk: i closed my eyes and breathed a prayer and you were there, my voice a siren, your mouth a shipwreck. there are ninety-nine names for God and yours is not one of them.

Nice nails!

Thank you, they’re for Valentine’s Day!

[…]

South Quad, 1:00PM, 2/3/2025

skip the middle man, shall we? there is nothing left to say; i have torn the dictionary apart searching for the words to give you. entrust to me your heart and let me cast it in gold, so it may be preserved for the world to admire. one soul to another, without syllable nor stress, for this is the gift of a language repossessed. temple to temple: we are mothers kneeling and mothers weeping, hands clasped and prayers unanswered. how can we be damned when we have each other? your eyes tell me it does not matter; this altar holds enough room for two.

---

I think about you a lot. What does that make us?

Alice Lloyd Hall, 4:00PM, 12/8/2024

i can feel the melody of your thoughts through the heat of your touch–an excellent conductor, in more ways than one–your pulse rippling but not breaking the surface, a swordfish streamlined against the ocean. everything we have to say has already been written above, a cosmic braille blotted by the sun. you wear the stars as a cape; i trace the freckles on your back, brush tears away from your cheek. don’t you see? a night sky splashed across your skin. a kiss made salty by sweaty lips, fingertips charting the seas you once commanded. you have been graced with ethereal beauty. in the nowhere there is only the rush, the crash, the silence.

---

I’ve got no one to cuddle with, [so] I’m gonna buy a body pillow…

Stockwell Hall, 12:00PM, 1/9/2025

a seed of resolve: i am going to love you to the moon and back. you protest weakly, the way a tired child insists on staying awake. do not set your words on me, for i know your tongue too well. i will wrap my arms around you and never let go, until the daylight bleeds into darkness and you fall asleep, the thump in your chest in line with the echo in my eardrum. it will take more than death to separate us. atrophy or infinity, whichever comes first.

She used the word assure when she meant ensure. which is not a typo, it’s a language problem, which is a big deal! People type fast, whatever, it’s okay, but somebody wants to be a writer and they don’t understand the difference between assure and ensure?

Traverwood Library, 5:30PM, 1/14/2025

there are windows of opportunity and there are doors of regret, sometimes both, but never neither. you have blown into my life like a wayward leaf. where did you come from? darling, i was born in a hurricane. the windows are boarded but the door still swings off its hinges. you shake your head–whether in denial, or disbelief, or innocence, as if it would make a difference. Isabel Allende was right: two words is all it takes to change a person’s life. everyone could see the eyes of the puma soften as she steps towards him and takes his hand~

---

Back when I was in Livonia… the school district said kids can bring their phones to school and I remember being like “we’ve lost the war!”

Jerusalem Garden, 12:30PM, 2/1/2025

who gets to control the narrative? the caution tape flutters, a moth snared in a spiderweb. i am an ambulance chaser in every sense of the word. you tell me it is immoral, and i remind you that morality is a price to pay for your wellbeing. are we only in love because we love emergencies? sometimes we make bad decisions and they blossom into the undeserved fruits of our labor. other times they burrow into the belly, out of sight and out of mind. you are delicate in this life, just as i am delicate without you–mother nature plays such cruel tricks on her children! my stomach rumbles in agreement: there are no dormant volcanoes, only overdue ones.

---

…I didn’t even get my freaking cheese grits this morning!

Duderstadt Connector, 5:00PM, 2/4/2025

annoyance is worse than tragedy because it fools you into believing that your emotions are unjustified. we allow grief to permeate the barrier, unregulated, like a broken floodgate. this luxury does not extend to inconvenience without the eye of guilt, an ever-present watchman. the caterpillar and the butterfly, two sides of the same coin–what is a tragedy but an annoyance left unchecked? it is human nature to rot from the inside. even the phoenix dies from an ironclad heart: thinking of you turned me into ashes.