FOR ALL THE TIMES I THOUGHT ABOUT LEAVING, AND ALL THE TIMES/PLACES/PEOPLE THAT MADE ME STAY
the first thing i realized is that
. . .
there are essentials in life and when someone else becomes your essential it’s strangling i kept getting choked in your bedsheets and tshirts the last time we had sex before i left was more like sex than love i thought about you the whole time on the plane i keep thinking about that summer tell me you think about it as much as i do
(yes i think about it too i think about it more than you do)
when i see flowers grow i wonder who they’re growing for
5/14 Hit, suddenly, with the jarring, earth-shattering realization I can’t live without you. Don’t sigh, don’t roll your eyes over teenage blood on paper. Your words drew the bite from my skin as strongly as firm hands. I counted each breath on the phoneyou know, when you fought so hard to stay awake because I splintered?-and I knew in each exhale was a promise, each exhale leaked loyalty. Does chance push us together? Do minutes c l i c k by unaware, or are we tied with stronger stuff, the matter of tough luck and fate? I stumbled onto you, over you, fell bloody-shinned into blinding confusion, but scratches heal and I am changed. Maybe not saving my life, but spinning me in new directions, I shuffled to a new pace. My heart went to the rhythm of chilled summer nights and there you were. Are! How miraculous, unlikely, and yet everything. Slivers of chance stuck into me and opened my eyes, and all I could see was you.
You’re not alone when you lie under the sky, when you wish for the stars to seep into your veins, to make you a part of something more. You are more fierce than the darkness curled in your eyelids. You will pick your way through the deepest nights.
FIGHT LIKELIKE HELL FIGHT HELL
NEVER STOP NEVER STOP
-
slurring hope into feeling flirting with shadows the message floods your bones
i think before i found you i’d been stuck in the soil just a little too long.
You are not as lost as you think you are
e, and soon you will be found again.
writing by Shana Hodosh from 4/13 to 6/14. b&w pictures courtesy of Deirdre Quinn used with her permission. graphics a combination of mine and free domain images. thank you to everyone who made me want to stay. i love you all.