Planting Spanish onion seeds

On the floor in my garage

In black plastic trays

While you read aloud the story of an Alaskan teacher

Deliberately

Imagining our babies in a year or two

Their hair will be yellow curls

Their eyes will be either oceans or ponds

Imagine the potluck dinners

The baseball games at 6 p.m.

Mom and Dad will be in love

And will never hurt anyone again

Not under heaven’s golden sun

Not this spring

That’s How I See It

Drinking at the canteen

Two stepping in between

Tunes from a Christine

Vocals from a Geraldine

Whirling in my cowboy boots

Twirling past the crapshoots

A pair of blondes, oh very cute

Both work as prostitutes

I love this life

I love this air

Perhaps I’ll start

A love affair

Just now

I saw her there

Up Town

Up Grade

Underdressed and overplayed

Time to care

Time to dare

Asked her name

She replied, “Emma Clair”

She could dance

She could swing

Do-si-do

And even swing

Miss Blair might bump

Miss Blair might grind

Whiskey shots for courage

Set up on her behind

The band played standards

Honoring Hank Williams and Dolly P

Emma eyes were locked on mine

Emma eyes were emerald green

By nine, she was mine

By ten, I was hers

By midnight, I was drunk

By closing time, I was blurred

Maybe it was the Jack speaking

Maybe I heard Jim Beam instead

When the local Parson asked for my “I Do”

That’s when I got newly wed

So two years and two girls

Tons of diapers, tons of curls

They’re my Queens

I’m their Earl

I still crave Emma’s shots

I still covet Emma’s hots

She’s built like an Autobot

And as easy as a chip shot

The band honors Loretta Lynn

The dance floor is getting thin

But we make this bar our own sin

And that’s how I see it

If there is a world where perfection exists. I’d think of you still. I’d think of your resilience, your strength, your smile despite back to back diagnosis.

You carry yourself with such a light that I couldn’t want a different version of you. I love you. I’ll always love you as you are always.

Always.

My friends were in a computer screen and my dad let me stay in my room to talk to them, so long as I went to church the next morning. My grandma bought me flip flops and jean shorts and cheap flowered shirts. They talked about how lazy I was. I punched myself in the chest when it all got to be too much.

In my daydreams, I was a child in soldier’s clothes, carried off from my family and martyred in some proxy war. But I was a girl and the Holy Roman Empire didn’t want me. So I tried to get away by chasing boys and going to their basketball games late at night and kissing them when I thought they would like it. They were all lanky and quiet and sad. I was curly haired and a poet and vulnerable, still growing into my shoes. Some boys seemed kind, but their love for me was a riddle or a funny joke because they couldn’t even love themselves. They didn’t know how.

One day at a time, I grew up. School stopped being easy when everything had to be in APA format, and I often wanted to stay in bed and never wake up. Politics and people on the Internet made me angry, and I thought they should be beaten over the head with a Bible. I eventually realized that I was crazy because my family was crazy. At some point, I forgave them. When my dad dug in the garden, I helped him even though I was so tired, just because I hated to see him out there alone.

I slowly quit going to the Internet for advice and started going to sweet old ladies. They told me I knew in my heart what is right, so I said goodbye to an awkward, gifted boy who I adored and would’ve married but who refused to grow up. I went to bed earlier. I tried to listen to my preacher and my professors, even though I still mistrusted them. I stopped hating children and their joy and their innocence.

War is real in many places right now, and while I am safe in my little small town bubble, maybe my brother and his friends will have to answer the call of duty soon. For now, I’m planning my wedding to a blue collar man, writing research papers, and cooking suppers every day. The chickens peck and squawk and make babies out the window in the front yard. I go out and pull up the carrots from last fall and smile into the sunshine, grateful.

Grateful that my heart has been gently bruised to the point of softening. Loneliness will do horrible things to a child, but as an adult, every day I decide to make war with it. Sometimes, I choose to ignore my doubts.

I let my mind be conditioned to believe in the good life. I am so glad I that I did.

Vibrant shields of yellow

Hope is held within small pedals

As I stand inside the field

It all becomes so sentimental

Lights flicker in a childhood

Senses grab at my belonging

Familiar dreaming you again

One day noon will not find me

When seasons call upon the grey

It's magical what has remained

Such miracles they hope to bring

A certain hope had come to me

So I held it up within my hand

Waiting for a queue of wind

Closed my eyes and pursed my lips

I wished to see her face again

Standing among the dandelions

Bold, and bright, like shining gold

Seeing her pluck the one that's grey

She's by far the wish most beautiful.

All Because of a Few Degrees

I never saw this coming

Neither did the other 12 billion

Such is the life, or the end of a life

For everyone on this planet

The ice cover began melting

It actually began years ago

Now, I began to take notice

Now, I must make plans

No longer will I walk from pole to pole

No longer will my skates be of use

No longer will my house withstand the heat

Now, it all turns to liquid

Our shield versus the asteroids falters

Waves, what are waves?, crash upon us

I cannot swim, but I can learn

Many have no such options available

What of our atmosphere?

What will keep the methane in place?

Am I to suffocate or drown?

What a hideous new word, “drown”

Perhaps there is another

Place or person who can help

Perhaps there is a reason

For this plague foisted upon us

I see the drips of liquids soon to become vapor

That I only learned about from children’s stories

I wished I had paid more attention then

For that “Happily Ever After” promised during such reads

My name is Ruben

Remember me if you can

My world is dying

All because of a few degrees

In the end,

There is only death.

It's a concept I've struggled with often. Not necessarily via interpretation or meaning, but fully digesting it. Internalizing it.

The inevitability of death is utterly, brutally terrifying. It's in the idea of a life cut short, the act of achieving & climbing the ladder ascending to your goals, but failing to entirely leave your mark — that is a truly horrifying thought.

I can imagine it is for you, as well.

You stand before the clock of eternity, its design bereft of the usual hands, its flat surface kin to a sun dial. Instead, you yourself serve as its hands, guided by a demiurgic force coursing through you. Every ticking, passing second, a new, monolithic titan is forged from the zephyrs of time — a new being of your subconscious creation. Each, resembling you physically.

What one would fail to realize off first glance: whilst recherche in their own ways, these are just versions of you, manifestations from your different thoughts. Or, rather, what you could become.

You can become your quintessence.

You are the stars beneath the moonlight, & the clouds along the azure horizon.

Everything yet nothing revolves around you; you simply move with the currents & adapt accordingly.

I say this to say to both you and myself: stop wasting time dreading the past. Stop wasting time looking into the future. Stop wasting time investing your energy in the wrong places. If you want things to change, & change for the better — if you want to become the quintessential version of yourself you envision — you have to evolve past that which brought you turmoil & doubt, & rise in the end. Only then will you have mastered the art of stoicism, & find your equilibrium in helpful settings or helpful activities where you normally wouldn't be at or do.

In the end, let us embrace the dance of life, knowing that each step forward is a testament to our resilience and strength. Let us seize the present moment with unwavering determination, forging our path towards greatness with every heartbeat. For in the grand tapestry of existence, our legacy is not measured by the fleeting sands of time, but by the indelible mark we leave on the world. So let us live boldly, love fiercely, and create tirelessly, for memento mori — in the end, there is only the beautiful symphony of a life well-lived.

I didn’t used to believe in past lives. Until I boarded a train in Vienna. There was a man a few rows ahead who looked familiar but I couldn’t put a name to his face. I considered the possibility that he looked like a childhood friend or a famous celebrity, but I couldn’t come up with anyone who looked quite like him. Sometimes I dream about people I’ve never seen - scientists swear it’s impossible, but my dad insists it happens to him, too, and he often meets people later in life that he’s seen in his dreams. When we locked eyes, something felt different. I knew he was thinking the same thing.

I recalled at that moment our story.

Coincidentally, it began on a train, the Orient Express, going from Paris to Budapest. I spent my inheritance on a ticket, which I came to regret come time to retire. We were in the dining car, and I tripped right next to his table. I have never been good at walking in heels. I had borrowed that pair from a friend and they were about half a size too big, making my balance even worse.

I knew that not everyone was staring at me, but the hush that fell over the room was significant enough to make me feel humiliated. I was not raised in the upper class - the inheritance came to me through technicality. I’d never met that side of my family. It was obvious that I didn’t belong here. I was about to regret my decision to purchase a ticket when the man next to me reached out his hand to help me stand up.

The first thing I noticed about him was the way that his brown eyes softened when I met his gaze. The second was that he was sitting alone.

“Yes, I’m traveling solo,” he said, knowing I was thinking of a way to broach the question.

“Why is that?”

“There wasn’t anyone to take with me.”

“I can relate.”

“You’re here alone?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

I realized that I was in the way of a waiter who was doing a much better job balancing a tray of plates than I was at balancing on my own two feet. I made the split-second decision to sit across from the man who I came to know as “William”, sometimes just “Will”.

We talked until the dining car closed when we were politely asked to leave, though I could see behind the waiter’s eyes that he did not like me.

“Would it be inappropriate to ask you if you’d like to come back to my room?” William asked. “And I’m not suggesting anything like that.”

“It might be, but I’d say yes if you did ask me.”

“Okay, then: will you come with me to my room?”

“Yes, I’d like to.”

I came to find that he had a nicer room than I did, but there was no reason to be jealous because I slept there too for the remaining days of my trip. William opened the door and immediately removed his suit jacket, tie, and shoes, and I started to consider the fact that he might’ve been propositioning me after all. I lingered by the door, trying to decide if “it’s vacation” or “I paid a lot for this trip, so I should get my money’s worth” was enough of an excuse to sleep with him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when he noticed I hadn’t spoken.

“I’m still trying to decide if I should sleep with you or not.”

“I don’t think you should.”

“Would you like me to leave?”

“No, but I think you should take your shoes off because you look like you’re about to fall over and I’m pretty sure you only had one glass of wine.”

“Okay.” I placed my shoes next to his and I heard the distinct sound of his body flopping back onto the mattress.

I gathered a lot from the way he smiled when he was sprawled out on the bed like his long day of mingling in the bar car exhausted him to the extent a day spent in combat would.

I didn’t ask him if I could take off my earrings, but I did before I mirrored the way he fell backwards into bed. He later told me he liked how I was “unapologetically myself”. In reality, I was ready to apologize for any misstep I took, but he happened to be easy to please on account of the fact that we were very much alike.

We were late for breakfast the next morning and I was absolutely positive that everyone in the dining car assumed it was because we were having sex the night before - I overheard a snippet of a conversation and I wanted to go over and correct the record, but William said I should enjoy my fifteen minutes of fame. Most people are unremarkable, and that I must be remarkable since they were making remarks about me.

The truth was that we spent the night playing Gin Rummy with a pack of cards he borrowed from an old friend and “forgot to give back”. I insisted on playing until I won, but I didn’t win until well after midnight.

We were in as much of a committed relationship as two strangers on a train could be by that night, which was when I stopped by my room to grab my toothbrush before I headed back to his. We didn’t sleep together, but we did sleep next to each other. It was quite possible that he caught a glimpse of me naked when I changed into one of the complimentary robes after I spilled champagne on my shirt - actually, he made me laugh so hard it came out my nose. He promised not to peek, but if I were him I would have, so I couldn’t blame him either way.

Since the other passengers made their assumptions and judgments about us, we decided to make some about them, making up rumors about the rich folks around us as they walked through the bar car. Most of them were unbelievable and some of them were crude, but all of them were hilarious.

I remember the moment I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Will. We were in his bed and he started singing this song he had stuck in his head, but he could only remember the chorus. He gave me the tune of the verses and we worked on lyrics. He wrote them down on a napkin and kept them in his pocket. The pen was mine, but he asked if he could keep it. I had no particular attachment to the pen, so I let him have it.

It was a few hours later that I asked him why he wanted it. “Why did you ask for my pen? It’s nothing special.”

“Not to you, it isn’t,” he said. “It’s special to me because it’s yours.”

I wanted to tell him that he already had my heart and he could have my soul if he wanted it. But instead, I asked him for the deck of cards he had, and he gave them over without hesitation.

I’m not a writer like I was then, but I still carry a pen in my purse almost always. I take it out along with a receipt, so I can write him a message. I don’t address him by name because I don’t know what his is in this lifetime.

I don’t have the time or space to tell him everything I’m thinking either so I keep it short.

“Just so you know, I loved you. I’m sorry we didn’t have more time.”

When an attendant comes by with the drink I ordered, I hand him the note and beg him to discreetly deliver it. For whatever reason - maybe it’s the desperation he sees in my eyes - he places it between two napkins and hands them to the man I knew as "Will".

I get off the train before he does. When I pass by his seat, he mouths “I love you too”.

I hear footsteps in the hallway, but it could just be the wind. I see flashes; they’re blurry. (I’m not sure they’re real).

I can’t get into some of the rooms in my head, but I know shadows hide behind the doors. my body keeps score of a game I don’t recognize—some locks

aren’t meant to be picked. not knowing

is its own form of a haunting.