I once cradled a phone to my ear on Christmas Eve, screen cracked and memory filled with images and videos of teenage debauchery I felt made me better then everyone else. Breakup texts and photos of horrible moments captured for posterity I felt made me more understood than anyone else ever had felt. I proudly denounced my family over the speaker to their heart aching silence. I screamed that they were not my home- that I had found it within a someone or other's decrepit little shell of a place a teenager had been able to drink, smoke, and engage in anything they wanted to. It felt like a party, not like the strict confines of a family. I deserved to wallow and hate, because hate is easier than hurt. My shadows couldn't quite reach me, so small and obscure beneath dingy bulbs and the diet of fast food and faster living.

And I woke up today, Christmas morning eighty years later in my childhood bed with my mother bringing me coffee. Her face is so weathered from the stress I've caused among many others, but she still offered me a warm smile and a kiss to my forehead. I ate breakfast with my brothers, and scuffled with them as a little sister ought to before we played our favourite childhood video games with the same level of skills (I lost, and they would tease me, and I would cry for my mom to make them stop). And then I gathered with my grandma and my aunt's family, and noticed under warm and full bulbs that my shadow had grown up, too. It sat behind me with the old ghosts that haunt each of my loved ones, and for once, I felt at home.

I am sure there have been pivotal moments that have led to this change aside age. But somewhere out there, a tree was planted the day I was born. And that tree stands still, as do I. And that must mean something. But, today, I woke up, and I felt okay. Linear as it may be, or as sudden as comparing the two moments everyone in my family remembers from that lonely and fateful night, I am okay. I am home.

pain is cliche

this year goes too

with rivers of blood

and cities bulldozed

and whole people bulldozed

and when you talk about a people bulldozed

they say shutup

talk about the wound of the mighty

it glows more

it glows moreit glows more

it costs more

the people bulldozed are cheap

this a year of selective utopia

of selective optical expanse

it goes

it goes with the gates to graveyards open

hospital nurseries beautifully sketching little graves

this is their world

atleast this world

and if you dare to say it

shutup

The year died and then breathed again - like I, phoenix rising, baggage clearing. Plane almost landed. Soft or hard, bring it on. Night darkest before dawn indeed, let that dawn on you as your mind's sun awakens again, please. The year is waxing. That ain't a warning. Quite the opposite - not taxing. That proposition's simmering in your cranium, the crowd in your frontal lobe stadium roaring, the flow state waters pouring again. Rise and shine, friends.

There’s a piece of abstract art on the wall and Gilbert thinks it looks like shit. It doesn’t even look intentional—the strokes are messy, the paint-job is uneven, globed on in some places and too thin in others—it's stupidly amateur. The signature is the worst part, in barely practiced cursive, ugly brown stamped on sickeningly bright yellow. He wonders if the artist was proud of it, if they worked hard, how they worked, how long it took them to regurgitate this half-assed window into their half-assed soul. He understands that he’s being a dick, but this is his head, and he’s tired of pretending he’s someone he’s not. Faith, as the Hancock-esque signature proclaims, sounds like a bitch anyways.

Maggie doesn’t like coffee. But, she’s decided she wants to be an intellectual today, and so she is going to sit in this café and drink the bitter caramel brulé latte she reluctantly ordered and jot down notes until someone compliments her outfit, or gives her a longing glance, or her ass gets numb. Whatever comes first. She almost meets eyes with a girl in a tank top that says cherry bomb, but the girl sneezes and the moment is ruined. She sighs, takes a drink, gags, and writes photosynthesis is the process of converting energy from solar to chemical.

Ted is having the worst fucking day. The café is busy, he’s tired, and Miranda is late coming back from her break, which means that Abby will be late for their break, which means Ted will be late for his. The manager won’t like that, which Ted knows, but he’s too caught up with remembering orders to care. The coffee smell is giving him a headache. He’s taking some blond chick’s order—a hot café mocha, bad choice, it’s too strong—and as he’s ringing her up, she says, “Thank you ma’am!” Ted sneers, but Abby is back from their break and tapping his shoulder, so he decides to be the bigger person for the millionth time in his miserable existence and go on break.

The universe is all about stars.

Colliding, avoiding,

straying, exploding

stars.

If they do not meet, then who exists—

if not the space between their lips

and the dead language they whisper.

There is not enough time for me to meet you.

I’m sorry.

These oak leaves

The plans of a summer past

Stripped

Too early by the season

Abandoned and lying about the ground

Easily lifted

To settle

At someone else's door