Dear Miranda
Dear Miranda,
Today it rained, and I smelled you. Sometimes I wonder if I’m going crazy, feeling you in everything. Do you think of me when you step in a wood and smell trees? When you feel the edge of your cashmere sweater and remember when I kissed you under the stars? Maybe you don’t. I understand if the memory of me blurs at the edges. It’s been awhile.
~Jack
Dear Miranda,
Today I saw a train and I thought of you. You liked the way the sounds of trains and the little booths we sat in. I feel like I have to remind you of things, to keep your world from going gray. My world’s going a little gray right now.
~Jack
Dear Miranda,
Today I drove past a field of wildflowers and I saw you. You were twirling, flowers woven through your golden hair. You saw me and smile, beckoning me to come closer. I came, Miranda. But you ran too fast, and I lost you.
~Jack
Dear Miranda,
Today I went to the lake and I heard you. You were crying. I went to find you, to comfort you, to set your world straight again, but I couldn’t find you. I searched all around the bank. I heard you though, weeping. Your sobs no longer run through my head, but the echoes of your pain stay with me.
~Jack
Dear Miranda,
Tonight I’ll see you again. I am going out to the lake and my pockets will be full of rocks. I need to see you, to stop the cries that still ring in my ears. Tonight I will see you again, and we’ll pick wildflowers. You will smell like rain and I will smell like trees, and our hurt will be forgotten.
~Jack
The woman spun around on the chair, her cigar dangling from the corner of her mouth. “I accept dollars, euros, sterling silver, broken hearts and secrets.”
My fingers drifted to the pendant around my neck, then yanked the chain hard enough to break. “Here.” I handed it to her. “There’s a heart inside.”
The corners of her sangria mouth rose, her violet eyes hungry as she turned the necklace over in her hands. “Yours?”
“No.”
“Broken?”
“Yes.”
She let it dangle, holding up the chain, then slipped it into her pocket quickly. “He's yours.”
Their home was cold
their hearts were winter
and they spoke in frost,
icicles dripping from their lips.
Their bodies were a permanent blue
an elegant shade of deathbyfrostbite.
Their footprints left tracks
of crystalized snow
snowflakes leaking from their sapphire fingers.
Their hearts shivered
in their bony chests
for winter is not a place
but a state of mind.
My Book
My book has many pages. Several empty. Yet to be found. But most full. Some full with shaky handwriting. Some filled with loops and thrills. Others filled with slow streaks and tear stains. Most are filled with slow streaks and tear stains. But this is just how life flows. But I, I have a special tool. Simply an eraser. An eraser that can erase the streaks and tear stains. An eraser that is always there for me. An eraser that creates loops and thrills in my empty pages. An eraser that comes with me in my pages of shacky handwriting, streaks, and tears. I have a friend. Not the ordinary. So much more. Her pages have shaky handwriting. Loops and thrills. Slow streaks and tear stains. So she is there for me. And I am there for her. She is transcendent. My book is filled with our pages.
A friend is something to keep.
The Girl who Walked the Moon
There was a sharp moon that night. As bright as the elderly neighbor had ever seen in a hundred years. The man told stories of his past life. Adventures upon adventures! But the children's favorite was the girl who walked the moon. The man was told to be 111 years old this winter, he certainly looked so. He was frail, made of wrinkles, but most of all, witty. This is what struck the children. But the stories! How they believed such fairytales... or were they?
The story went as if a normal night. The elderly man was just a boy. 6 or so. He had been outside walking to the fields where he went every morning before dawn. But this was not an ordinary night. The moon had been so bright, it had blinded anyone who looked at it. Report after report of blinded person had come after that night. It was much brighter than this night. But yet, this night was much brighter than the other nights.
That night, the night that changed the elderly man's life forever, was a magnificent one. It looked almost as if it was the daytimes, except... the sky was dark... but the earth was bright! How could this be?! The children did not know, but they were too stricken with this magnetizing story to stop and ask.
The moon happened to not be the strangest thing that night. All of the sudden, there was a shadow on the ground! Of a girl! The once young boy looked up to the bright moon and saw an unbelievable sight. There was a girl, who seemed to be walking across the top of the moon! He looked at her. She looked at him. Their eyes locked, and she ran down to the little boy, across thin air. She said four words, "One hundred and eleven,". It had confused the man until he got into his 100's. And now he realizes, that this winter, his birthday, will be the last one. A great one. The moon is coming.