She fell so fast, she could have been on fire

And the stars that watched told tales of her descent;

She hit the ground with sound of earthen choir

With muddied feet (she'd landed in the mire)

She runs until her energy is spent;

She fell so fast, she could have been on fire

She'll never die, but burns upon her pyre

As her flesh draws bird of prey with burning scent;

She hit the ground with sound of earthen choir

If you saw her you would deem your sight a liar,

But you'd somehow understand what all this meant;

She fell so fast, she could have been on fire

And the ground is ash, the sky a burnt reminder

That the branch will fall down as the tree is bent;

She hit the ground with sound of earthen choir

So when you see a star that falls from higher,

Remember how she fell and where she went;

She fell so fast, she could have been on fire;

She hit the ground with sound of earthen choir

You sit there with your bags packed.

I want to be selfish and tell you not to go but

there's a lump in my throat.

You've only said one sentence to me since you've packed.

Russia has invaded Ukraine.

I don't understand why you have to go, it's not our fight.

Instead of talking I just smile and see you to the door.

I ask you how long you will be gone?

You shrug your shoulders.

I hug you tight and breathe in your sent. I'm afraid

to let you go.

I wave as you drive off. Then slump

to the floor and cry.

You've got this I tell myself over and over.

I clean the house from top to bottom, go for a run, walk the dog and cook dinner.

I can't distract myself at night time when I sleep alone.

The silence is unnerving, a reminder that you haven't called.

I watch the news daily for updates, praying that everything will be ok.

The calls I do get from you are brief. I don't want to

fill our conversations with my worries.

Weeks turn into months as seasons change.

I check my phone every 5 minutes waiting for a message.

Like someone flat-lining, I don't hear from you in days.

Silence fills the house as the light creates shadows across the room.

I go about my day, numb and empty.

My heart aches every day I don't hear from you. It's tearing me apart.

Like a needy child I want to be by your side.

My distractions are no longer working.

Every night tears help me sleep.

Exhaustion has become my best friend.

I've stopped looking at my phone, expecting the worse.

I surrender myself to suffocating sadness.

Then you call.

I'm coming home.

As she stared off the bridge, she couldn't help but think how everything would be easier with just one step.

One step. That's all it took.

The courage, however, was severely lacking.

So pulling out her phone, she called the first number she could think of.

And it rang. One, two, three times... No answer.

Screw it.

Tapping another contact.

One... two... three... still no reply.

She sighed, scrolling till she reached the one person she knew would have to pick up.

"Hey."

The voice is warm and comforting. The tingle of a smile graced her lips.

"Hey. I just saw your text."

She winces a little at the lie. She'd seen the text hours ago. In fact, she'd seen it the second it came through. But there was something special about ignoring a text just as you received it that emulated the feeling of death so that you wouldn't have to reply. Mostly so that she could pretend, just for a moment, that she didn't exist.

"That's okay." His voice was calm, reassuring even. She closed her eyes to imagine what he must look like at this moment. It was getting late so he was probably already in a t-shirt, his hoodie discarded somewhere behind the rowing machine in his dorm. She could already imagine him laying on his futon, phone in hand, a half-finished youtube video on pause next to him.

A sigh escaped her lips as she remembered the comfort of just meeting him there every night. She could turn around, walk off the bridge, and right back into the safety of his arms.

The water crashed below the bridge and her attention returned to the gentle curve of the river's current, which had been suddenly interrupted by the splashing of ducks.

"Where are you?"

"I'm just on a walk." It wasn't a complete let but yet they both knew the severity of what she'd just said.

"Right now?" he asked. It was almost four in the morning and she knew that he was already catching on.

"It's going to be okay." She whispered.

"Hey, no, where are you?"

She could hear him scrambling and the sound of jingling that he assumed was his keys.

She didn't even bother to hang up. Gaze steady, she stared down at the sinking weight of the water.

She sighed, smiled, and stepped.

Twenty years. I was real for all of them. Yeah we had our fights, but we were kids, we worked through it. So why then was this different? I can tell you why. You left fear enter your mind, a voice told you I was going to get angry. And you know what, I would have, because you pointed out something I was doing wrong. But we are human. Everyone gets angry, but we talk through it like friends.

You said I was never there for you. NEVER THERE FOR YOU! I was there when your dog died. I was there when you were in plays in high school. When your appendix was inflamed. When you went to college, I visited you at college! I helped when you had your first anxiety attack. I was there when, your now boyfriend, was looking at tinder in front of you! You were crushed, I was there!

I went away, learned some stuff. Got all high and mighty thinking I was top. Sorry. But how was I supposed to know you were angry when you never said anything! You blamed me for four years of anger and anxiety. And when we talked, I apologized for that. But seriously, I was the cause of that for all those four years? BULL! You wanted to find a way, an outlet for everything and you picked me.

You choose fear over a friend. I needed a friend overseas and every time I reached out, you found another excuse. I had flaws and if you told me, I would have tried to fix it. I felt fear over there, but I didn't blame anyone for why I felt that way regardless I was alone for most weeks.

So I asked, "do you still want to be best friends?"

Your response, "I never labeled my friends, I see them all the same...."

SO I am on the same level as your boyfriend? What!

Then said, "I will text you when I'm ready to hang out again." Then you complained to your mom about how I stopped texting. I WAS GIVING YOU SPACE LIKE YOU ASKED!

You just found another reason. Twenty years meant something to me, clearly sixteen only meant something to you. You did a better job of acting those last four years, fooled me.

Something you never knew and won't know. Remember, this isn't your fault. We create our own emotions, but I also didn't have a friend to talk to. I don't hang out with people after work or on the weekends, all my friend left or fell into the shadows. A week after we talked, I held a gun to my head. It wasn't loaded because I didn't know the ammo it took. Why did I do it? Because between the broken arm, the deployment, readjusting back to society, and losing my best friend, I thought "WHY THE HELL SHOULD I BE ALIVE?!"

I miss you ever day, I miss playing video games with you. Throwing a football, watching movies or playing with my dog. I miss texting you, but I'd rather have a friend who calls me once a year then lies to my face for four. I hope you have a good life. I'm sorry you won't be a part of mine.

It's not something lovely

Or kind

Or even slightly friendly.

It wasn't fun.

It started with the video.

It was taken in class

Put online

People saw, and talked.

The annoying guy had asked.

I had refused.

I wasn't interested.

H had recorded the whole thing.

I was bothered for a month.

Everyone told me to go back

tell him yes

I couldn't do it.

Then the awful day came.

When it all became too much.

When the bothering became worse.

And I lost it, in front of everyone.

Then came the fixing.

The staff got involved.

The Video was gone.

The guy stopped talking to me.

It was over.

My first breath of fresh air in a month.

I wake up to see him still sleeping. We are sprawled out on a mattress on the floor. The piles of boxes around us jog my memory of last night. After a long day of moving into a place we can finally call our own, our exhaustion took hold and convinced us that a room with no heat and only one blanket was the comfiest room in existence. I look at him again as his breath comes out steadily, warm puffs of smoke in the December air. Maybe we were right.

My personal heaven would be inside a book.

The book would be short, it doesn't have to be long to be amazing. I haven't figured out what it would be about yet but it would be written beautifully. Some people would love it and some would hate it. Someone will always hate something that someone else loves.

On the cover, in small letters along the bottom, would be a name. The name isn't anything significant to anyone else, just another name on another book. But it would mean the world to the person whose name it was.

Paige Winters.