I am in Milan, alone and waiting for a plate of Chicken Limone. I am wearing the most beautiful dress I had ever seen, had ever worn and felt against my skin, hugging my physique. It is black and embroidered with an organic rainbow of flowers and sprouts from my chest to the very bottom of the skirt. The first time I tried it on, I was much younger and naive. I was prom dress shopping with my mom at Macy's. I fell headfirst in love with every stitch, but it was hundreds of dollars.

The dress and I met again tonight, many years and lonesome nights and lovers later. The night and the twinkling, conversing stars flood the terrace I am dining on. They tell each other I look beautiful tonight from lightyears away.

Thank you, sweetness.

I sip a sweet white wine and it drips onto the rose embroidered on my dress, soaking through it, the skin covering my sternum absorbing the sugars and grapes and hands of the man who squished them. My heels are off and my the bottoms of my feet and my unpainted toes brush against the cobblestone that is still a little damp from the sun shower earlier in the day.

There is a small group of string instrumentalists and an accordion player in the corner behind me. Their song caresses my face with a rough, but gentle hand. It was written for me by someone who pines for me. I will be coming home soon, but the stars, the strings, the garden on my gown, and the potion I'm sipping on have a few more stories to tell me.

I realized recently how much I adore lemons

Under-appreciated, versatile, heavenly odorous fruit

I take slices

circular slices, like the sun

to drop into my water

The mingling of two pure things

Every sip like the sun upon the lake

I misplaced myself and it was hard for a moment. It got worse before it got better. Then it got worse again. But it broke like a fever.

When the fever broke, I found that transient version of myself holding my bones and my stardust together in the corner of a dark room. Sunken eyes and cracked lips and a heart that I had to beg to beat on with persistence. I picked up my body so delicately. Holding my brokeness in the palm of my hand. Owning it. Dusting off my skin and polishing my mind, I collected myself again, and inherited a trove of gorgeous things I was never expecting find.

<3

Hi,

I spent some starlit hours hoping you’d sneak your way into my dreams and later confess that you planted yourself there on purpose. I spent several moments picking apart the miniscule, yet insurmountable ways you had accidentally conviced me that I was interesting and unprecedented. Someone you’d write songs about. It was wasted time and headspace, but it felt real and it was fun.

I’m sorry I incorrectly translated the way our eyes locked when we found the time and space for a moment to breathe and talk. I’m sorry I listened to that band the whole car ride home because you mentioned them once when we were alone. I want you to know that this isn’t sarcastic or angry and I lay no blame upon you for this. I am simply a fool and I hope you’re well and I will try my hardest not to fall any further.

I think you’re mine every now and then. I know you’re not, but there are brief moments when the night tricks me into being a firm believer of my own helplessly romantic conspiracy theories. There are conversations and laughs that carry clandestine meaning in our air. We might not know what that meaning is or where it came from, but we know it’s there, behind the toothy grins and wordy eye contact. Our air is heavy. Drunk or sober. The air that flows between the two of us sitting next to each other by the fire under the stars after midnight. The air that has to work constantly and stealthily when we’re all together to contort and disguise itself as innocent, “close friends” bullshit.

I could also just be crazy and lonesome. But most of me thinks you feel it too.

I believe a good writer is someone who can turn feelings into words in a way that most can connect to, but few expect.

Good writing falls into a mysterious area between total surprise and things all too familiar.

Good writing is still important.

Social media consists of seemingly aloof, silly online worlds, but that doesn’t mean the people logged onto them are incapable of writing with charm and awareness.

Saying “lmao tru” sometimes and writing beautiful, rhythmic poetry aren’t exactly mutually exclusive.

I’m not saying that I deserve to be remembered,

I’m admitting that I cannot bear to be forgot.

That I both hope and fear to see you at the opposite end of the crosswalk in the city that whispers your name so sharply sometimes.

That sometimes I read stories and you’re there, in between the lines and falling down the margins.

That you are still the most interesting person I’ve ever met.

I admit that I hope I’m a ghost to you too, even if I’m just a flicker in one of your dreams.

Until I see you again, maybe across the street.

The softness of the endless, billowing clouds and sky from the window seat. It perfectly juxtaposes the dry air and dramatic irony that has settled into our row of seats.

I could almost laugh.

I have my headphones on, pretending to be preoccupied with music and noise even when nothing is playing from them. I don't want to use much of my energy entertaining him during his final hours of foul freedom. I will put my all into that last, victorious, mocking glance and goodbye, as he steps off the plane, sent to rot.

For now I'll put on a playlist that makes me feel bold, and press myself against the wall of the plane so our shoulders can't touch.

Love is a divine place, even when the wells are poisoned.

Even when the walls crumble and the ceiling leaks, like a metronome as the droplets hit the bottom of a bucket. Even after you patch up the hole and the orange, water-stained paint remains. And you stand where the water once fell, without a grudge.

It’s rarely unblemished, and it’s never perfect, but it’s bliss.

It’s usually fleeting, but it’s pure comfort when it’s live, right in front of you.

It’s giving your entire self up, to be nothing but a safe haven whenever they call.

To feel everything at once in that fraction of a second long, extraordinary glance.

I've always loved spilling my guts into a journal in the middle of the night. Writing has continuously found a way to sneak into my life unexpectedly, just like the feelings. Unexpected feelings spawn even more surprising words, and usually, I only need them to sting the page a little bit and echo in my own head, never to reach another soul. I usually have routine, work, play, love, mess, weekends, and weekdays, but once this quarantine came into play, I really only had myself to keep all of my mind in check. And that's when I started writing like a motherf*cker. I wrote another eight versions of the same unrequited love story that I can't seem to shake. I learned a few things on guitar and wrote a couple verses to a couple sad songs about growing up that I'll probably play for no one. Ever. I copied down some streams of consciousness about wanting/needing. Etc.

And after a while, I kind of wanted someone to notice. So I searched for outlets. And after a scam or two and a few websites that looked like deserted MySpace profiles filled with acrostic poems and pop-up ads for erotic anime games, I found Prose. So yeah.

If you're reading this, or have read anything else from me, thanks for letting me spill my guts.