It's a snow day. There is no snow outside my frost glazed window. There is fresh homework plopped down on my sister's head, and her hands are not bitten and sliced by Jack Frost, but rather they are clenched around the family tablet, a pencil listlessly scrawling topic sentences and supporting details.

Sixty words in French lie forgotten on my bedside table. My mother speaks avidly of going outside, but there is so much to do. And procrastinating is like a balloon with a hole in the center: you throw it and catch it, making a little progress as the wind dutifully lifts it a tad higher, but eventually, it will fall. Soon, the method does not work, and I get desperate, brushing off basic necessities and remembering how I left my textbook at school, expectant that school would resume the next day. It did not.

Now, I wait as my postponed English exam files slowly into my inbox. We weren't even supposed to have exams, too much stress, the head of school said. Tell that to four out of six of my teachers. The show must go on. I bid you adieu. Loose leaf paper and disappointment is all I amount to now.

I am the daughter of a Police Chief

So Christmas for me,

at dad's house went differently

Christmas consisted of helping,

those in need

Or decorating the

Police Department tree

Hanging Christmas lights,

downtown as far as the eye can see

Going to the lighting ceremony,

downtown with all the elsery,

from Goodland Nursing Facility

Also everyone else in the community

All the cops had a sense of,

responsability when it came to me

So I spoiled beyond belief,

Under that Christmas tree

Oh my, teddy bears in

boxes bigger than me

I love all of these guys

they were too sweet

This Christmas were

special to me!

and what did it take, in the end? when did it begin? i think

it was drowning in starlight and seeing your face

in the constellations. i think it was when i said that

there are not enough words in all of our tongues

to come close to saying how much i love you and i think

it was where i ended and you began and you ended and i began. i think

there's a certain kind of infinity nobody wants to name,

because naming things takes away their magic. i think

it was burning up in the midday sun with

my blood turning golden with imagined glory and turning

to see you smiling the same wild smile back at me. i think

it was from driving down the highway listening to indigo girls. i think

it was under the light of the blue moon, stranded

in a parking lot out in the countryside, immune to fear

for just a moment because hell, we're all under the same sky after all.

and isn't that a special sort of idea? don't make a word for it.

i'll immortalize my epiphany in my memory, and

there's no need to understand it. there's no need to quantify infinity.

My walls are up too high /

faulty defense mechanisims, like the button's jammed / lungs refuse to open /

they won't release, i feel like i could cry /

and i'm so jittery and scared i think i'll die /

it's 10:22 and i'm still awake /

watching the clock go forward, forward /

backed into a corner / i wanna hit the breaks / please drop the game /

i'll try and stay / please forgive me if i leave /

healing animal, that's what i am / fight or flight, i wanna flee / big brown eyes that cannot hide and tiny legs that break to carry me / healing animal, that's what i be /

overpriced lotion/ dripping down paper-tattered wrists

with watercolor and peach juice//

cicadas in the hills beyond the whistling dunes

/whisper with the thrum of engines/

and the sharp scent of gasoline

the whistful snap of a charcoal flip phone

and the understanding that boys can only stay in love for so long

Silence, an old friend

Come to play in the dark

Shadow puppets against the bed frame

Memories of years gone by

Like sands in an hour glass

Dancing with my inner thoughts

Like connecting the

Chaotic constellations

With each step

Losing my way back to reality

Where the minutes become liquid

Like melted wax on an alters candle

I should be used to this by now

These walls echoing Alexa with

Digitized thunderstorms to

Drown out the single heartbeat

Calling out to the void

With no answer in return

This soul sewn together

Loosely

With each shallow breath

Praying sleep calls soon as

To sleep the waking giant

Within

Caught between twilights I

Dream of the Dawn

so close your eyes, and let me take you to the water lily ponds. way back when i tripped over my words trying to reach you, petals falling awkwardly from my lips. you’ll have a laugh, and i’ll put my head in your shoulder, and we’ll think of the good old days, think of when we had no faces to place our names to. and i’ll tell you how your name is the one thing i scrawled onto that board that i haven’t changed. and then we’ll smile again, and i’ll take you somewhere else, next.

so close your eyes, and let me hold you by the pinkie, ever so gentle, for i am so deeply infatuated with you, to the couch in my living room. like the one in your dream about us and a sleepover with all the missing beds. you’d be quiet, maybe, in the darker days, or maybe you wouldn’t, and you’d say all the things you need to say. and i’d listen, and i’d get us both a blanket, and we’d hug, without the pseudo-pillows, and i’d get you that ice cream and those comfort carbs. maybe play “the night we met” by lord huron. and we’d be together, and that’s what matters.

so close your eyes, and let me know when you’re having your sunlit smiles, but your rainy days, most of all: i want to know about the rainbows formed at the bottom of your waterfalls. we’ll laugh about you and your kids, and me tending to your pool, and i’ll text you about sunscreen patents when i’m supposed to be in school. and we’ll elbow each other about practice kissing and stupid dates. and everything can be okay.

so close your eyes, and let me take you to somewhere. where i’m awake when you’re awake, and the moon kisses us to sleep at the same time. to that inevitable day where you have that plane ticket in your hand, and i don’t have to imagine how it is to see how much taller you are than me.

so open your eyes, and let me take you to chicago. where you’re in that same turtleneck, and i’m not wearing any perfume. you’ll hold out your hand like in the movies, or something cheesy like that, and i’ll jump into your arms instead. you’ll show me around town, and we’ll do the things we said we would, and we’ll get frozen yogurt and maybe head to the mall and laugh. there’s no atlantic between us, just our palms pressed together and a walk around the city. and i’ll think back to the water lilies, and how even if they didn’t exist, we would have ended up here, anyways.

somehow. some way. the universe would have brought us together.