I gave you everything.

or at least what my childhood self thought everything was

I let myself play pretend with the memory

as if I hadn’t given you the best of me

you slipped yourself out of my life easier than you had slipped in

and it’s not like you owed me a damn thing

but I thought the time spent meant you would at least say goodbye

But you were playing games.

and when you passed GO, you collected your $200 and left me behind

losing a game I didn’t know I was playing

and I’m left paying rent on the space you take up in my mind

wondering why I care less about you and more about the way you left

and I think back to the last time that I saw you.

when I left a can open on the table

jenga blocks spilling on the floor

I let you spin my head round

half a drink in, losing the game and my judgment

only it wasn’t really lost

I chose to leave it behind

and I wonder if it’s still sitting there

the way my last text is still sitting on your phone

wondering when all these games really end

then, a pedestal

when, higher expectations

now, it just exists

before, I thought more

during, it could have been us

after, only me

I run through life and deadlines

I squeeze every inch of time out of my calendar

Please stop telling me to slow down

I want you to run with me

Chase me on this journey we call life

I’m willing to make everything happen

I’ll lose sleep and my body to make time for living my life

living our life

I don’t need you to go my speed

I just need you to keep following

to intersect our orbits

I’m never going to stop running in circles

but I’ll treat our collision points with passion

I’ll steer myself to run along the path you walk

I’ll love you

but I will live first.

The faint sounds of a piano trailed down the hallway from the ballroom. Anthony was sure his sister had locked herself in again, drowning her crises out with music. The ballroom was her sanctuary, the echoes of open space the closest Elise could get to escaping the castle walls.

A resounding crash interrupted his musings and the music that had been playing only moments prior.

Peering into the ballroom, a thousand crystal shards lay shattered across the floor. Above them, the dull metal chain of the chandelier was still, almost eerie in its lonesome, hanging unadorned from the ceiling.

Anthony took a step forward.

"Elise?" He called. The room was silent. He sidestepped each of the crystal shards, fragments of his reflection mirrored in every one.

"Elise?" Worry etched itself into his tone. The piano in the corner lay uncovered, adorned with sheet music. Anthony watched the papers rustle in the breeze, pausing. All seven of the glass windows were open, wind pushing the curtains to and fro, sending whispers across the floor, and a shiver down his spine.

What was happening?

Elise was missing, the wind was blowing, and somehow the chain from the fallen chandelier remained still. Unmoved.

When relationships end, I lose pieces of myself

Hack away at pieces of my heart

leave behind the entwined limbs of better times

cut off the hands I used to hold

They’ve all left pieces too

open wounds and blunt ends

I take a needle and thread to the blow-ups, the breakdowns, the back offs

putting together a patchwork of all the pieces that I keep

I kept the look in your eyes seeing me that first time

the love letter he wrote me before he was even called mine

I kept long walks and longer talks

midnights and magic

the feeling some people call sparks

I stitch together compliments and competition, whispered thoughts, a bold vision

I kept falling hard and loving slow

hands on my hips and road trips with no place to go

There’s a patchwork of memories that know the right thing to say

of a man who’s willing to play the long game

It’s bloody and real

passion and zeal

a bit of a mess

but damn,

He makes me feel.

I categorize the world based on how much of it is mine.

How many things still have the remnants of my fingerprints on their surface?

How many footsteps have I left that have not yet blown to dust?

There are places in the world that I will never see.

Never touch, never know.

They are only mine in imagery, in dream.

My own forced perspective on what they could be.

I will run my fingers over the spines of a thousand library books and never know the words inside.

But the joy as I walk by is mine.

I will wait hours for a phone that never rings and never know the reason why.

But the sorrow as I leave it is mine.

I read my books, I borrow my sisters clothes.

I walk my own path, I pursue my own goals.

The world is my oyster;

it’s for me, I, and mine.

We broke it off in the same conversation that you told me that you loved me for the first time.

I wonder if you thought love would make a difference, would cause me to change my mind.

I still wonder why you said it, when we were already at an end.

Is that what closure feels like? Leaving none of your words left unsaid?

We had already decided that our futures couldn’t align.

You wanted a house, a wife, two kids, and a dog.

I wanted myself, a good book, and a job.

No nuclear family, no calling myself mom.

You apologized for not taking me seriously every time the words slipped out my mouth.

You tried to convince yourself that you could be happy without.

I told you no, kids are no compromise.

I won’t change for you, so you can’t change for what’s mine.

You’ll find a girl and a white picket fence, a girl who wants kids, who can give you a home.

I’ll stand my ground, find a boy who’s okay being alone.

Because love isn’t always enough to make having children okay.

I don’t want to lose you

don't want to leave you

don’t want to keep leading you on

but I spilled the ashes

I lost the key

I broke it off

burned the “and” from between “you and me”

I told you no when our futures didn’t align

said it again when you told me that you'd change your mind

I can’t pretend that we could have been fine

I’d carry guilt of knowing you changed for me

and maybe you’d have me, but you‘d be unhappy

so we walk this line

we call ourselves friends

we never address it because we know how it ends

but lost in the background

I think we both scream

I wish you could love me

I’d always liked her stubbornness, but I think I liked it a little less when she managed to drag a friendship out of the ashes of our short lived romance. She talked a big talk about mutual friends and not wanting me to change for her, but she never stopped talking. And I never stopped listening. Two years later, I was still stuck in her orbit. I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try again. I don’t think I would have forgiven her if she had said yes. I needed the closure, the reminder of why the answer needed to be no. I dropped a love letter on the table as I left, apologies still on my lips. She had watched me walk in knowing what I was going to say, knew her answer would be no. She let me say it anyway, too nice to send me away, too desperate to keep our friendship. I knew she wouldn’t take the risk to try again, would give me the rejection I wanted. But it still hurt to walk out the door.

Following a summer of going to bed after the fireflies, the blare of my alarm startles me. Yet, I fall easily into the memory of routine. Throw on the clothes laid out the night before, brush my teeth, throw a granola bar into the backpack and trudge down the street to the bus stop. I kick rocks into the grate, waiting for the distant splash before I kick another. The bus screeches to a stop. I slip into a seat halfway back, resting my forehead onto the cool glass window, bumping alongside the potholes in the road. One more year.