“I never should have trusted you”

I said quietly, barely more than a whisper. I was never the kind of person to raise my voice when I was angry, but I could feel something shift that day. I knew he wouldn’t fight fair, so why should I?

His face was red and his eyes, which used to scare me, looked afraid themselves. Fear, it seemed, of the man to which they belonged.

“You would be nothing with...

As I stood in the town square with a crowd full of paranoid, violent skeptics closing in around me, I felt fear for the first time in my life. Until this point, I’d flown effortlessly under the radar. I wasn’t the witch I was accused of being, I was actually well- everyone. I was born a shape shifter, and could transform my physical appearance to be entirely identical to another person at any give...

It was as if the world was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t quite know how to listen. The falling of the sun always felt like coming home- like the peaceful quiet of a room with a humming ceiling fan, cool wooden floors, and the oscillating prism of changes outside. It didn’t matter where I was, or if home was a conceptual phenomenon or a discrete location. Or even an emotion. Regardless,...

I’ve learned to stop dreaming,

Because whenever I do, it kills me.

The staring out the window,

Hopeless romantic,

Daydreamer,

Always living in the world

That’s “just a fantasy”

It slowly wears away

That rigid frame of reality.

So intensely, that I stopped noticing

The subtle things-

The delicate sounds,

The back and forth

Of the here and now.

But now, you see-

This isn’t the daydream

It’s the ...

In another universe

One less broken,

Less evil and cursed

Maybe then,

I would find you first.

In a different moment

One less fleeting,

Less twisted and bent

Maybe then,

I would say what I meant.

But until then,

When the impossible is true,

When the stars fall down on you

And there’s nothing left to do

But be the person you always knew-

You’re hiding in the shadows,

Jumping out to scare me

Neve...

It was always you

At least that’s what I believed.

Shut out the voices

Listen to only one: his

Watch it burn to the ground: “love”...

The window won’t close,

But take a look through-

What a beautiful view…

What would you do?

Fix the mistake?

Take what you take?

Lower the stakes?

Do it or break.

Cry to your friend?

Always press send?

Only pretend?

All over again.

Waste all your time?

Say that it’s fine?

Senselessly rhyme?

Do it or die.

But the window’s still open

It means there’s a chance

To dance one more dance,

With a sick...

It was my third summer working on the island, and I was completing my last delivery of the night. As I came around the corner, I saw my favorite view of the coast from the highest point by the north lighthouse. It was just before dusk, and the last few bands of orange light descended the rocks by the shore. My job wasn’t much fiscally, but it reminded me of a world that I could make sense of. Ther...

I used to be afraid of music. When I was younger, I couldn’t understand why there were so many happy faces on the nights the fireworks went off. My chest hurt with no warning, and the ground threatened to crumble beneath my feet. Others told me this wasn’t music, but it felt just the same as the music that tore through the town when the annual parade marched through it. I was told that my fear was...

I wonder so often,

“Am I there yet?”

And ponder much further

Just what I’ll regret.

Right here or just there,

It does not matter.

It’s out there somewhere,

Outside of the chatter.

It’s cold out here,

The wind is strong.

It tells me my words

Will always be wrong.

If only- if I,

Could sing it in a song

The notes would be right

And my voice would live on...