I will call her angel when no one else will

She is beautiful, a savior, a reincarnation of some saint I will never meet

Stained glass irises, pretty lips offering salvation I don’t deserve

I will outline her silent complaints in charcoal so that everyone will have to see them

She’s not brave or loud or vibrant enough to make them listen

Someone has to

Smooth coffee flushes out bitter apologies

We’re not sorry for who we are

But sometimes bureaucracy forces you to conform

To say yes sir when you want to take a pastel lighter and burn this paper town to the ground

I will make sloping cursive into bold newspaper print

So loud they’ll have to listen

And they’ll be sorry they didn’t

There’s a pretty girl on 32nd street who thinks it’s funny I keep getting lost and ending up somewhere near exactly where she is. There’s a fragment of a skeleton in my closet shaped like her clavicle, jutting out just enough to be inconvenient when I try to slam the door on my past mistakes. There’s a girl who pronounces vowels the wrong way and rushes through words like she’s trying to catch a train whereas my mouth holds them on display for a while, makes sure the light catches on their consonants. There’s a sword of Damocles that she likes to shove me under like it’s mistletoe. There’s a bluebird in my heart that knows what I did, what I’m going to do again, what I’ll always hate myself for.

We don’t talk about love

We don’t exaggerate how much we miss each other when we’re apart

Because we don’t

Our hearts are mosaics made of everyone we broke

And an already torn apart heart can’t love

The January fling that faltered in February

She can’t remember their name

The beautiful thing that didn’t last long but left lemongrass and grapefruit in her wake

I almost stumbled after her, but she and I, we’re wildfires

We burn until nothing’s left, except us

Until I’m forced to fall into her arms again

It’s always temporary, as she never stops reminding me

Her smiles give me vertigo

But when the dizzy charade fails, and neither of us longs for its embrace

Or each other’s

We don’t regret anything

Especially leaving

One day, I think we might be too broken to put each other back together

And I don't know what happens then

I saw her cry once

The day she ruined another nameless pretty face

Golden tears flowing down dark soft cheeks in fluorescent lighting bouncing off her skin

I wanted to hold her and tell her that girl probably wasn’t worth it anyway

But I worried if we started to dissect the imperfections her, she’d discover all of mine

The careful act of playing dumb

Pretend her lipstick isn’t completely gone and my skirt doesn’t really belong to Hannah from biology

We gave up on playing make-believe but we do it every day, just with a different name

Don’t throw off the rose-colored glasses unless you have to

The waters between us are rocky and unsure enough as it is

It’s best not to rock the boat any more

And afterwards, when she comes begging for forgiveness

Her hair thrown up in a hasty bun because she doesn’t care how I see her anymore

She knows I’d walk through fire for her

I’ll hold her tight and tell her it’s alright

People make mistakes

I buy grapefruit shampoo and never use it, lemongrass face scrub that can’t wash away shame

At the end of the day, it’s just a game we play

And nobody wins

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.

Her wrist fit the curve of my jawline

I know this because we fell asleep

(she forgot to sneak out before drowsiness became her nemesis)

Somewhere in the tangled sheets and empty space between us,

Her hand cupped my cheek and my face fit perfectly against it

Humans aren’t made for each other like the way bunnies are made to repopulate and trees to absorb carbon

Our hands aren’t made to be held or mold to another’s skin

But even the universe- even evolution- makes mistakes sometimes

She was mine

A writer's solemn return

Although maybe I was

Never a real writer so

Please do not

Tell me my poems

Don't make sense

I know that

I know they're

Hardly poems

Hardly words at all

And maybe

The paper might

Swallow them whole

One day

Because they are not

Strong enough to stay

Afloat or stay alive

Or do anything at all

Especially exist

Especially mean something

Especially make sense

Because when I write

They are broken

And I don't think

They've learned to put

Themselves back together

But I believe in them

In their words

So maybe

You should too

Everything

I did

was

for your sucess,

so

how could you throw me away so eaisly? You always did have a

sweet

tooth. So, i let you gouge yourself on cookies

until

you could barely stay awake. Was i just another cookie to

you?

Somthing to use, to chew on until I

tried

to stand my ground against you? I may have been just a sweet treat

to

you, but to me you were my eveything. I am a fool for your

fake love covered in powderd sugar and broken promises.

If the diabites were to

kill

me, I would have no complaints. Why? its quite simple actually,

because to

me

there is no life i can lead without you being in it.

The coincidences make themselves known

That poet died on the same day I read her confessions aloud for my father

Who doesn't care for black shoes and evergreen memory

The scratching haunts me

Irony exists to annoy me

The sky looks pastel then depressing, mourning blackness seeps in

Facts and figures that must be wrong

There used to be a birthmark on her left ear I swear

And his eyes have never been that clear

And I never feel older by and by each year

I try and try but the letters won't connect

My words hitch themselves to each other and stumble down the hill

Oh there wasn't a crack in that book's spine yesterday

My own room betrays my confidence

The painting is crooked, and the letters are confused

Time is a concept and deja vu is so common

Coincedence is commonplace, my mind rests, eyes race

Oppositely, opposition, overwhelmingly awful

I always wish I wasn't here