you have no idea how often i say your name in my head, and how often my mind gets stuck on you.

you're the song that i listen to over and over at three a.m. trying to understand why i love it so much.

and it hurts because when i look at you you're no longer the only thing i can think of

because suddenly my mind is filled with all the reasons why i'm not good enough.

and if you saw that i wrote this you'd never guess that it was about you and that's why it hurts to think about you too hard.

you set my thoughts on fire and i'd lose myself in the smoke if you let me.

I get it. I am looking at writing contests and places to publish and its already changing what I write. Like they have requirements and topics and I am writing but now its in response to them.

This will be harder, getting published will bias my work. I have to be thoughtful about this.

Something is pouring out of me, a violence and a pent up creativity that has been years in the making. I am exploding onto paper and dripping blood from all these gashes.

Have I restrained myself so much? I see an image of barbed wire wrapped around someone in a cocoon. Flesh stippled in bloody lines.

Napoleon Hill says there is a mine in each of us. A deep rich vein of minerals and we must find it. Must discover its subterranean depths and rip it out of the ground. Excavate it. That it is the only way to live and one who has not found their minerals has not lived. Has wasted their life above the ground.

Only this is a volcano. I sank a pickaxe into the ground experimentally and it shot out into the air. Now I am running from the lava.

Or am I

Consumed.

There is a bustling silence that comes with the setting sun. Creatures of the day start to rest their heads as night festivities begin.

There is a peace in the inbetween, two worlds meet for only a vibrant moment. On beautiful days like these you can hear the laughter bounce from buildings crowded together- friends meet and rejoyce in their free moments given only in the dark. Music plays as natures melody of the sun fades to silence.

The sun hangs on as long as she can before releasing the land to nights cool hands. Darkness comes in hues of purple, orange and pink- even the sky dances in joy to see her mysterious sparkling sister.

At the very tips of the horizon the stars twinkle in excitement, one day they dream to shine as bright on a planet so lively. Some simply smile- recognizing their brief importance to life so far from their homes.

I always loved rainbows because you never had to choose a favorite you could just love all the colors.

I often got confused or mistaken for a cool lesbian, but that was just stereotyping because I was husky, ugly, grumpy, and didn’t take shit from anyone and apparently warriors like this are too strong for mortals so they are often labeled lesbians. I held onto my rainbows anyway.

Then in college I made friends because they saw my rainbows and opened up to me. They didn’t care that I wasn’t a lesbian. They invited me to their fun events, they hung out with me on campus, brought me candy and favors from their adventures if I didn’t make it. They looked out for me against the world, even though the world had it out for them not me.

As I grow up and remember the love from my friends I remember to hold onto my rainbows. I remember the love and care I received. I try to pay my debts forward. I hear people fighting, people arguing, people judging, and I always try to support my friends. I remember it doesn’t matter who anyone loves, how anyone dresses, or who they identify as - rainbows don’t choose favorite colors.

They love everybody and I’m part of the rainbow too.

And love conquers all.

Always.

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.

I always wonder why people say “I love you to the moon and back”.

That’s a finite distance.

(477,710 miles to be exact).

Why would anyone limit themselves to a fixed number?

That’s not how much I love you.

That doesn’t even come close to how much I love you.

The universe is infinitely expanding;

That’s how much I love you.

New love is like waking up. At first you’re still half alseep. Your love is just a random collection of moments loosely tied together with sunlight, literature and afternoon coffee runs. But after a while, you begin to notice a rhythm. It’s vague and a bit disconcerting, but there’s a definite shape to it. You proclaim your philosophies with both a shyness and a ferocity. You boldly assert-yourself, because you know that if you don’t you’ll become dangerously infatuated with a reflection that is not your own. She’s marvelous. A goddess. And probably straight.

It’s summer. The grass is green. You’re on the edge of adulthood, of certainty. And froliking has become your thing. Full of unclaimed ecstasy, together you tumble through the field outside your highschool. You’re excited for a chance to show off your fifth grade gymnastics skills. It takes a few tries, but you finally manage a sloppy no-handed-cartwheel. She, who wrote a whole novel over the first couple months of quarantine, is jealous. You feel big, almost too big. The sun sets, and slowly, through the dusk, into the dark, she walks you home.

You kiss in November. By then, your friendship is intimate enough that she has penetrated your Covid bubble. You both agree the kiss is a disaster, but you eat oatmeal and dance and love each other anyway.

A little backstory before the poem. It was 2003 and I was a young maiden of 18 when I met a younger man whom I would fall in love with.

I was excited and hopeful for the future when I wrote this, and unfortunately, that love wouldn't last and turned into battered women syndrome and physical abuse by mid-2004 into 2005.

We look each other in the eye.

Love surrounds us in this small room.

Our lips touch, tongues prodding, dancing amongst each other, Our hands touching and feeling sensitive places...

I want to be one with you.

One in an unbreakable union.

Take me, take me gently.

Take me and make this bond last.

Show me... Show me everything and all of you.

i tripped and i fell

always the clumsy one, me.

i tripped and i fell

right into you.

like some cheesy romance flick

i sat next to you on the bus,

and i discovered what it was like

to have a crush so intense

that it threatened to destroy you.

i'd had crushes before.

but none like this.

loving her gave me a sense of rebellion.

of being true to myself.

of course, it also meant i had to put up

with the carelessly thrown insults

when she was in a bad mood.

she didn't mean them to hurt,

i was just

collateral damage.

she ripped me apart,

and still i could not stop

wanting her.

years went by, each year she got

farther from me

and closer to someone else.

and still i could not stop

wanting her.

i didn't know the reasons

behind my want.

i didn't know why

i wanted her to want me

when i didn't even want to be me.

i didn't understand,

and if i'm being honest,

i still don't.

i'm still waiting for someone to love me

the way i loved her.

and i'm hoping that,

when they do,

i won't let them down

the way she let me down

over and over again.

L’amour

Love—

Tell me about love-

Love is powerful

Love- it is Her

She is love

I call her: Mother.

From the moment she knew she was expecting a baby on the way

Even before laying her eyes on me

Her heart filled with love

Love for her little one

And when I arrived, she carried on showing love through her actions

Of total care, absolute guarding, sharing funny riddles and giving pearls of wisdom.

She makes me believe in love

Reminding me that love gives one strength to keep on going not only for ourselves, but also for those who love us, too.

Love, if personified, she’d be love

Pouring out her heart & soul to many who she loves

So blessed to have a Super Mom

Unconditional L’amour

#L’amour (c) 7th March, 2021.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=58lbbLQ5G0Y