mascara stains on my pillowcase

love letters torn to shreds

memories set ablaze

clouds in the sky covering the moon

fog in the air blocking my view of you

forests and mountains in have come between us

and never have i ever felt so free

I see people in a small cafe next to my tiny apartment.

An elderly couple with matching gray for their hair, greet each other with a peck on lips. I wonder what they tasted then? He must have tasted the faint bitterness of the coffee she was sipping earlier, and she dry staleness because he drank a whole glass of water as he sat.

A very busy barista with pouty lips, and golden hair. Few of those golden strands stuck to her neck because of the sweat she was oozing out. She must taste like lipsticks, and fresh salt. Her eyes catch the glimpse of a tall figure.

A tall man with a neat gray stubble, in a gray polo and green khakis has an aura around him. Everybody in that small cafe could smell his presence, I am sure he tastes like sandalwood and sophistication.

A poet in me is bored of my own taste. I wonder how I taste like, to other people. Do people miss kissing me, as I miss kissing people?

that eyes could say

what sawdust words

never could,

that i could look

and wonder,

and that was that

the possibility of

youth's greatest wish:

kiss

to wrench that feeling

from someone else,

to breath it off them.

the want

to steal it from your

eyes, or your lips

:

to miss

wanting

kissing people

to miss the

//romance

the

//bleeding hearts

to miss what

i missed

to long for the unreachable:

forbidden islands

and landlocked expectations

and wanton undreamt dreams

i miss what

i can't have

&

i miss what

i never wanted

I had a beautiful cat that we bestowed with a godawful name: Coconut. Because the name was so inappropriate for such beauty, we instead called him Coco, like the undying beauty found in Coco Chanel's lovely creations.

Coco was a stray who landed on our doorstep one cold and rainy February night. He was smart enough that once he'd come inside and finished the bite to eat we'd given him, he immediately pounced upon my chair and and proceeded to curl up directly on my chest just over my heart, as if to say, "Hey there! I know you make the decisions. I like it here a bunch. Can I please stay?"

Needless to say, I was smitten, not only with his beauty and gorgeous midnight blue eyes and Flame Point Siamese coloring, but also with his eagerness to love and his intellect. I often said Coco was smarter than anyone I knew, and I still think that was a fairly accurate assumption.

Over the eighteen years that I was gifted with this ginormous and beautiful animal's soul, I came to realize that he was my Spirit Animal in every possible sense. One look into his blue eyes or one sound of his loud and lamb like meow, and I immediately knew what he was thinking or wanted. If was as if we were on the same mental planes. While I have had several close relationships with animals in my fifty something years, I had never experienced such a profound relationship as the one I had with Coco.

I lost Coco after eighteen blissful years. It was and remains the hardest animal loss I've ever experienced. At times, so intense is my grief that I still cry at the least thought of him. No, in my lifetime there will never again be another sweet animal soul in my life like sweet Coco, for he was one of a kind, unique in all ways, and derived from dreams of legendary cats that once belonged to Gods long ago in far places like Egypt.

I'll miss and love you, Coco - always.

Danny was only a year old when we rescued him. The day we picked him up I seen a frightened English cream golden retriever, who was shaking from the terror that had endured since he was born. Danny was just fur and bones when I adopted him, he was neglected, hungry and left to die. A heartbreaking moment that would change both of our lives for the better.

Six months earlier I had lost my mother and best friend to a long-term battle with MS. It was the worst day of my life. Prolonged feelings of sadness began to kick in and I was a hot mess. I was lost and ready to throw in the towel of life and give up. I spent those next six months with a feeling of emptiness, like an existing void within my broken soul. I needed to make an appointment and talk with a therapist asap. I was later prescribed an antidepressant by my psychiatrist. Therapy helped, but sometimes it wasn't enough. Three rounds of three different antidepressant medications and it didn't do me much justice.

When the medical approaches failed me, a family member recommended a better one. She told me about a dog who was in desperate need of a new home and family. Mind you, I never owned a dog in my life and didn't even know where to begin as far as rescuing one, but it would all fall into place and come together.

Shortly thereafter, we made arrangements to rescue the dog and the minute I seen the trauma behind those puppy dogs eyes, I knew that I wasn't the only one who felt lost. I realized that I needed the dog just as much as he needed me so I took him in. He went by the name Danny, and to keep it simple on him I left his name alone. I didn't want to make things anymore difficult than they already were.

The first week of owning Danny was extremely challenging. He shook like a leaf for the first few days and didn't want to be bothered by anyone or anything. By the second week things eased up and he finally calmed down and came around. He was eating like a normal dog would and I spoiled him with treats, of course. Danny was becoming more affectionate and lovable as time went on. Him and I developed a strong bond in such a short period of time.

That empty place in my heart was no longer empty and my soul was no longer broken thanks to Danny. He filled my heart with all the love that I needed. For me, it was a light of hope that gleamed from the end of that dark tunnel and it was more than enough to mend my broken soul back together.

Danny is my best friend. He always greets me at the door when I get home from work and he's always there to sleep by my side at night. Sometimes he can be a pain in the ass but I wouldn't trade him for the world.

I had two amazing German Shepherds who I dearly love and miss. Sam passed three years ago at 14 1/2 years - Brandy followed the next year at 13 1/2. They were a great match. Sam was ever protective and watchful of those he loved. He was my shadow with every step I took he was there. He was a serious soul. Brandy followed a year and a half later and from the get go she was all about the fun.

We always joked that if they had theme songs - Sam's would be "Taking Care of Business" and Brandy's would be "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." So fitting. Sam passed three years ago - he looked at me and drew his last breath and he was gone. He passed close to midnight right before Easter Sunday, so the animal crematory was unable to pick him up until that Monday. They told me to tuck and wrap him in a sheet and they would come early Monday.

On Easter I went to visit my husband who was battling numerous health issues. When I came back I looked in the foyer where Sam was and I was puzzled I couldn't figure out what I was seeing. When I came closer it just took a moment before I began to do the ugly hard cry. Brandy, who was not known for being generous...for example if they were given a treat and if it was something she wasn't particularly fond of she would watch Sam who loved everything gobble his up then sit there casually with hers while he drooled staring intently at her uneaten treat....when he finally began to raise up to make his move she would lean down and swallow it....same with the outside water when they were playing she would rush to the water bowl drink until she had her fill and as Sam panted waiting patiently for his turn she would take her paw and flip it emptying the bowl...but that Sunday in the foyer my broken heart was just torn to shreds. In front of him she had placed her favorite nylabone.

The next morning when the young man came to pick him up and I was telling him and he said, "please leash her up as we take him out." He carried Sam and the bone with him. She sat patiently as he loaded him and the bone. She watched as he turned around in the cul-de-sac and she raised her as she was trailing the scent. She got up and walked across the yard staring as he went around the curve. She and I stood there for a few moments before walking in. Dogs are just amazing beings and blessings. They love large and pure.

I am about to do what I didn't think I could ever do again...a couple of weeks ago I went to meet a litter of four week old German Shepherds. Our school year ends on May 27th and I will be picking up a girl named Houston. Let the adventures begin.

My name is Harper and in six months I am going to die.

I know this because I paid for the privilege. You can do testing for anything nowadays, and apparently your expiration date is one of them.

I had money to spare, I was bored, and yes, I foolishly thought the test would tell me some distant faraway age like eighty-two or maybe even one hundred and two. When I found out my expiry date was in six months, I began to have a really, really bad case of buyer’s remorse.

I went through quite a lengthy denial period, where I thought I could go through the rest of my life pretending that if I just do things exactly the same way and not change anything I would conveniently forget and everything would be fine and dandy. (This was by far my favorite coping mechanism. But it didn’t last. Eventually my anxiety bubbled up and exploded like a shaken champagne bottle.)

Next came an obsessive, defiant, planning phase. Everyday I would think of elaborate plans to avoid death like I could somehow scheme my way out of it. I mean, theoretically, it seems doable. Plane crash? Don’t go on a plane. Car accident? Just stay home all week. Heck, heart attack? Pop three baby aspirins and hang out in the hospital lobby, right next to the crash cart ready to wave a big sign that says “I’m having a heart attack.” Unfortunately the test didn’t provide the cause of death, just the exact time, so I couldn’t really plan in specifics.

Eventually all the planning became incredibly exhausting and I settled into a kind of defeated acceptance. My plan was still not to actively put myself in a situation where I could die, I was not quite ready to submit to my annihilation, but if I somehow still find myself in that situation anyway, I figured I should really work on trying to be okay with that.

So then I commenced on a hedonistic three months where I blew half of my life savings and did literally anything I could think of. I ziplined through the forests of Peru, skydived over the French countryside, drank the best wines and indulged in rich Italian food, snorkeled off the shores of Bali, shopped with abandon while perusing the streets of Tokyo, London, Dubai…

You get the idea.

The most pathetic part of this whole thing was that I didn’t have a family to spend my last few days with. Or close friends, really. My impending death would not be filled with earnest mourning and last minute tearful proclamations of love and reminiscing. Oh sure, my funeral would be packed, but nobody would miss me, not really. As an orphaned twenty-two year old who inherited too much money at an early age, not only was I kind of an entitled asshole, I also haven’t really lived yet. I haven’t fallen in love or had kids, wrote that great American novel, won a Pulitzer, or experienced any of that syrupy sweet stuff life is supposedly made of.

Anyway, that’s why I’m hanging out in the hospice ward.

My friend here is Lucas. He is twenty-nine and has end stage heart failure from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He described it as his heart being too big - literally but I suspect it's also an accurate description of him figuratively. I befriended him five months ago when I found out I was going to die. And no, surprisingly, he does not have any wisdom to impart about acceptance and healing and the meaning of life. He is very not okay with his young, awesome life being cut short, thank you very much.

He did have some useful information for me though.

“It’s quite experimental.” Lucas warned in an ominous tone.

“Obviously.”

“They usually only accept terminal patients… you know, because of the ethical issues.” He eyed me warily. “But in your case, they made an exception.”

He was adorable. He said that last line like a late night infomercial. Or maybe a used car salesman.

“This is not some elaborate black market scam to harvest my organs, is it?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “I mean, no offense, but you look like you could use a new heart.”

Lucas had to grab his oxygen mask after laughing so hard at that one. The nurse at the station gave me a dirty look.

After Lucas recovered he looked me in the eye. “How much do you have left?”

“Time? Or money?” I joked. The look on his face was not amused. I cleared my throat. “One month. And as you know, money is not an object.”

“Well, one month can give you… at least eighty years in virtual time. So pretty much a whole lifetime, if you decide on it.” Lucas shrugged. “Once you jack in though, there’s no going back. Your clock will end as scheduled and that’s the only way out. Also, it’s totally immersive, so you won’t even know you’re in virtual. It will be like… you’re in a dream but you don’t know you’re in a dream.”

“So I would really believe everything was real? Like I would grow up to be ninety years old and I would actually think I lived all those years even though really it will only be one month?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“How many of the other people will be real?”

“Most will be computer generated. You might meet some real ones, if they are in the same time dilation settings as you. There are very few people with the resources for a whole month, you know. Most people can only afford one day.”

“So there’s a chance that I will marry a program?” I furrowed my brows. “And then if we have kids, they will also be programs?”

Lucas cocked an eyebrow. “There’s a high chance, statistically. Like I said, there’s only a few real participants at any given time. Not that it would matter to you, you won’t know the difference.”

I thought about this. Would it really bother me if I didn’t know? I bet my computer generated kids would be adorable.

His expression suddenly turned serious. “There’s something else. It’s rare, but there are a few cases of people noticing little things not quite right and they become increasingly convinced they’re in a simulation. Which of course is true, but when you’re jacked in and you’re not completely sure if you’re crazy or just being paranoid, it can be terrifying. They call it Simulation Induced Paranoia, or SIP.” He paused. “Participants become really…. distressed.”

I chewed on this for a second. “I still want to do it.”

He looked surprised. “Really?”

“I really don’t have anything to lose.” I replied nonchalantly, like I just decided on a dinner entree. I should probably be alarmed that I was acting so cavalier. Lucas wasn’t exactly giving a stellar sales pitch. Then again, it was true, I really had nothing left to lose. I’ve done what I could with my twenty-two years. Might as well have another lifetime to try again.

Lucas stared at me for a moment then sighed. “That’s the thing. The longer you’re in virtual, the higher the chance you might experience SIP. Remember, Harper, a month is a lifetime. The chances are very low of course - less than 1%, the virtual worlds are very meticulously programmed after all. But if you experience SIP, there’s no cure, no safe word, you’re stuck until your clock runs out.”

“I already decided.” I said resolutely. Once I’ve made up my mind on something I was usually unshakable. It was one of my many flaws. “In fact, let’s do it tonight. I want to get my whole lifetime, not a year less.”

—

Everything was too bright, the sounds too loud. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. Jacking in was a very jarring process, it felt as if all my neurons were firing up all at once. Somehow I felt tremendous pain and the heights of delirious ecstasy simultaneously. Like I was feeling every possible thing all at the same time. There was a terrifying moment when everything went black, and for what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds, I truly wholeheartedly believed I was actively dying.

Maybe I was supposed to die on the table during the procedure. Or maybe I really did unwittingly offer to have my organs harvested for the black market. Damn it, I probably caused my own death in my extreme efforts to avoid it...

I blinked twice. The room slowly came into focus.

“Hey, sleeping beauty.” A familiar voice.

It was Lucas. But also, it was not Lucas. He did not have his portable oxygen tank close by. His lips did not have their usual bluish tint. He looked… healthy.

Everything came back to me at once.

“Oh shit, Lucas. That was nuts.” I shook my head, clearing the cobwebs. “That felt too real. I really felt like I was in there for twenty-two years.” I checked my watch. I’ve only been in Virtual for twenty-two minutes.

He chuckled, swiveling back and forth on the expensive office chair I bought him for Christmas last year. My boyfriend never could sit still. “You’re a champ, Harper, you were the one who wanted to push the time dilation to a year per minute. I was worried pushing it that far would compromise the world building, but your mind was amazing at meeting the program halfway to fill in the gaps. You made yourself a rich orphan, really? Money is no object? Hah!”

I disconnected my neurojack from the surgically implanted access port behind my right ear. That rich orphan stuff was my subconscious free at the wheel. I didn’t intentionally decide on it. I turned back to Lucas. “Why did you add all that stuff about Virtual in there, and SIP? Don’t you think that was a little too… meta?”

Lucas suddenly broke into that grin that melted my heart so many years ago when we met during undergrad at MIT. “Well, since you wanted to put the expiry dates into the program so people would know how much time they had left, I thought, what the heck, why not make it interesting? Why not make a virtual game in Virtual?”

I was not amused. Lucas had a penchant for bloated code and unnecessary side doors. Also, for not telling me about an adjustment until after he has done it. “That’s messed up. You should have run that by me. The expiry date was a suggestion from the beta testers and we all agreed on it. We didn’t agree on putting the game into the Virtual Universe as a side door..” I paused. “Also, what if I didn’t jack in? I would have died in a car accident or something?”

Lucas turned back to his computer and typed a few lines of code. “I had carbon monoxide poisoning ready to go, but I was prepared to improvise. And anyway, I didn’t actually think you would gravitate towards the game during the beta test, I just put it in there as an Easter egg of sorts. I figured most clients would only think about jacking in when they were close to their expiry dates, if they do at all. But on second thought, maybe I should take it out of the programming, it’s too much work to keep up.”

I jumped off the table and stretched my legs. My entire body felt stiff like I haven’t used it for months. “Yea, take it out. You’ll have enough work as it is when we start accepting our first commercial clients next week. We have four people scheduled on our first day which I already think is too much.”

“We’ll be fine.” Lucas was now typing more purposefully. “That reminds me, I need to finish debugging this before Monday. Do you mind picking up dinner?”

“Sure.. from that new Thai place again?”

“Sounds good.”

I smiled as I gave Lucas a quick peck on the cheek before I grabbed my purse to pick up the take out. Everything was going well for our start up. It was hard to believe that only two years ago Lucas and I were broke PhD dropouts who took a leap of faith building Virtual from our one bedroom Boston apartment. And now… well, let’s just say our first official month in business is projected to generate six figures in profits even after subtracting overhead. Mid six figures. And as soon as we open up our second and third facilities the growth would be exponential.

To top it all off, I was pretty sure Lucas was planning on proposing to me next week on my birthday. I saw a charge from some jewelry company on his credit card statement while I was doing some filing last month. Judging from the amount, it could only be an engagement ring. Lucas never would have spent that much on a piece of jewelry otherwise.

I sauntered out of the elevator from our high rise office with a pep in my step. The weather outside was just the right amount of sunny. Even the Boston air didn’t feel as suffocatingly polluted. Yes, everything was going well. Perfect, even. I eyed a meticulously trimmed bush suspiciously as I walked by. Maybe too perfect.

I felt a sudden stab of panic. The smile dissipated from my face.

Oh no.