Jane squeaked opened the window sill, its wooden frame faded olive green with cracks in the crusted paint from 50 years of second story suburbia. It was a soft July sunset, a blood orange glow filtering through the swaying trees, creating intricate patterns of shadows across the red brick house. It was one of those quiet days that always follows a teriffic storm, and Jane hadn't left her childhood home for four and a half days. To her mother's ever questioning friends she was deathly sick with something unavoidable(but not shameful).

A bluejay cautiously hopped away from the window as a bundle of frizzled auburn hair emerged from the bedroom. Dark green eyes encircled by round bronze glasses fixed on the nest, and the bird dropped a damp stick on the ledge before fluttering away.

Jane whistled at it. Her imitation was uncanny, she thought.

haunting you throughout our freshly severed two year relationship. My mind wonders in a world where you never said what you did, where you weren't standing so close to the edge of life. I hate your parents for treating you like less than human, I hate the teacher who took advantage of you, I hate how cruel the world can be and how much you hurt me.

I loved how we were together before all the acid rain. Now the S word sends a sharp pain through my chest. Now at a hint of emotion I raise suffocating concrete walls in my head. I hate that I feared blood on my hands, I hate that I stopped loving you. I would amputate my arm to keep you from suffering, haven't you suffered enough. I would live unhappy to give you what you want, but that isn't what you want. You want me to be happy. I want you to be happy too. I'm sorry.

Now the thought plagues me, right girl wrong time. It didn't end well, not in this world. Because all of those things did happen.

If we were having coffee, patiently still in the plastic red seats, and you said to me that you "couldnt see the sense in things", and life had taken that place inside your heart where the longing was lifted,

If we were having coffee, minds thick in the late night and eyes glazed from keeping them open too long, and you said to me that you couldn't find the words to say there wasn't any purpose, not even far away,

If we weren't having coffee, and I sipped alone, and I felt that empty cascade inside my ribcage, it'd be too late to say,

If we were having coffee, I'd be happy to be with you, and we'd still have hope and lots of it too, and dreams to chase and nature to see, and lots of reasons to make time for a coffee.

I really do need to write these things down sometimes.

Here are the reasons why I love you, but I will not say I love you. Only the reasons.

Around christmas, in the fog of post relationship morosity and in a fever of spontaneous debates about philosophy, I came to know you.

I find it hard to be comfortable around people. I felt that way, at least. I have been nervous around people for most of my life. I have longed for something my whole life.

I had forgotten about childlike wonder and beauty. I had supressed a crazy sort of imagination and in its place were sex and anxiety.

You inspired something very old inside of me. A carefree wonder, an obliviousness. Asking stupid questions and being unafraid of people. Not caring about the things that do not matter. I have begun to feel the way I thought I should feel. I remember my childhood brain. I feel I am beginning to understand what has happened to me.

I have come to the greatest epiphany of my life, and it has settled all around me. I read Vonnegut or see Van gogh or read Feynmann and I see what it is I have been searching for. I see authenticity. I see the shadow of Truth.

I was inspired to this by your dedication to knowledge. To the truth of the Universe. Thank you.

And even if you were gone, this inspiration would never leave me. This is a beautiful place to be; it is a marvelous life that we have come into.

That is absolutely

That is very

I feel so happy to hear that you think

I am glad we are

I want to be

I

Oh?

Okay.

The red light sits forever on top of the wire. I have grown used to waiting. I have grown tired of expecting the dam in my mouth to burst. Recently I have been emerged in a fever of longing. I have decided to wade a bit longer in it.

This is not an unusual mood for me, but it is accompanied by a weariness that I can not shake. I think I am flotaing in something different now. Before, love was viscous and obtuse.

But now... I don’t know, I think.

The sun falls over the horizon. Right now, I am staring at the passing cars on the highway. A yellow one goes by, like the truck my dad owned (before he died).

Today I have been distracted imagining people - painting ugly portraits in my head. I do it until my brain splits apart and identity melts out through my ears.

A bird floats above the highway for a moment. And then off, far away, with the wind. Bye bye, bird.

I think somebody stabbed my chest. I've suspected this since Sunday. Oh, a blue car goes by. Bye bye, blue car.

I lay down, in my head. I keep staring (like a fool) into her eyes, and a nausea floods up within me as I plummet. She keeps smiling because she does not see into me.

We’ve seen a film about a french singer who might have cancer.

Love spreads herself out, blocks the sun, replaces the sky.

Oh, I see the memories passing by my face. I smell her, and, for a moment, it is fond; but then it is passing.

And when Love herself leaves the sun has left and the sky has left.

It is funny: only now do I remember climbing these walls, as I return to them on the way down. I cannot imagine what it was like at the bottom.

How new information can shed light on the past! She was fucking him, I suppose. That really makes sense now.

Oh? I fall past the bottom.

I think I will be lying down for a while, in my head.