talking in code

Don't make eye contact. 

Thats weird. 

It's not weird to have someones crotch in your face. Or stare at a person for an uncomfortable extended amount of time. Here, there are no boundaries when testing your personal space. Because someone else is testing them for you on their way to work, to their lovers house, to see their sisters dance recital, to get drunk and forget their ailments, or on their way home. 

The Metro in New York City is a melting pot for people watching. Individuals of every age, size, and color use its cheap and easy transportation from Queens to Brooklyn to Manhattan. Everybody looks so different: their style, hair, scent, eye color, posture, attitude, facial expressions, shoes. 

But there's something almost everyone has in common- they're listening to music. The ratio of people on the train with headphones compared to people without them is tremendous, because most of these people are riding alone. 

When I ride alone, I never take my headphones off. And it's this universal thing that everyone seems to do and it's the nicest realization you'll ever have when your crammed in between strangers. And the train smells. And there's no room to breathe. And some creep won't stop looking at your legs. 

I'll just sit, or stand, or hold on, and watch. And I wonder what every person with headphones is listening to. And then I'll wonder if they ever pause their music to hear what people are saying. I wonder if they, too, are looking around and seeing everyone with their headphones and connecting the dots. 

The dots that say no matter how different everybody on this planet can be, we're all still related. We're all connected.

We're people, watching people. 

They say it takes a certain type of person to live in a big city, and there are almost nine million people that live here. I take comfort in knowing that being stuffed like sardines into a metal can underneath the city, whatever keeps people coming here, I have that in common with them. That sitting on a train full of people, awkward, or alone, listening to music, avoiding eye contact, and being okay with it- 

I feel home. 

I don't care, nor do my ears

"You've changed." And then he said nothing more.
I felt my insides squirm. Words fell out of my mouth the way they would naturally, almost instinctually.

"How? What's changed?"

Silence.

What do you do when somebody you care about says that? When you know by the way they pronounced the two words wasn't a positive accusation? When you can hear their disappointment?

I pulled the lit cigarette away from my pursed lips. I held my phone and its unresponsive line with cold fingers and felt an even colder wave of emotion wash over me.

Everybody changed. And everything: the weather, your sisters taste in music when she turned 13, your uncles newly forgotten drug addiction, fashion and style, hair length, wrinkles- those are just listing a few things we cannot help, that are inevitable.
People fall in and out of love. They make the decision to quit their job and move away. They decide things that can change their lives or the lives surrounding them forever.

So, have I changed?

Yes.
With the winter air and the forgotten leaves and the dead trees. With the year coming to an end. With my hair getting longer and darker.

The list I could write of things changing besides myself is infinite, and my list of personal changes is identical in that way. And that too, always changes. The list is like that board in airports that is always shifting- airlines, destinations, and times. It's almost mesmerizing. Change is beautiful in that way.

I decided to not be upset and to take it as it was- real.

Because he, too, had changed. And I didn't like it either.

kept looking forward on paths sideways

Remember watching movies when you're younger, or reading books, and the scenes of people getting together with friends from childhood, or their "college friends," and they'd catch up on each others lives happily, comfortably, like time and distance didn't exist? Like they had both been in limbo around their hometown at the same time and collided? Remember being excited to grow up and share these moments- adulthood, change, real life?

I remember being a kid in the third grade and eating lunch with the same girls at the same table and thinking we'd be best friends forever. Or being 10 years old and swimming through the sunlight in my parents pool all summer with the neighbor boy and thinking we'd keep in touch after he moved away. Or turning thirteen and coating my eyes and clothes with black and having a girl who I looked up to introduce the idea of being "blood sisters" and running away from our fighting parents. Or then being a teenager in high school and taking a xanax for the first time with my best friend and thinking she'd be the girl I roomed with in college. And then having my first roommate in college, a girl from my high school I barely talked to but was familiar with, and her smoking weed with me for her first time.

I remember making the decision to stop attending the college of my dreams a few weeks ago, rooming with a girl born the day before me in the same hospital as I, our mothers doing Lamaze classes together pre-life, our fathers doing business together when our parents were both still married and happy.

I remember Thanksgiving just last week, and the night before running into that childhood friend at a bar I spent days with listening to Pop music and eating candy like every day was halloween. Her father had passed away. Her brother now had a baby. And she and her mother hugged me like I was somebody dear to them, like I was someone they missed in their lives. But now she lived in Orlando and it had been years before we collided, literally running into each other in our hometown. We were no longer 11 years old but now legally allowed to buy booze, and we both looked beautiful standing in front of our proud parents. She grabbed my hand, drunk and nostalgic, and said "it's crazy how this happens, how you think someone will be in your life forever, and boom, life just happens." 

I felt time stop as she said this, feeling how true the statement really was. Feeling her sadness I had missed and wished I would have been there for. And knowing another friend was there to help, to support her and how they'd both think they'd too be friends forever.

Life gets in the way of everything, and although it's scary to look back on all the ghosts of forgotten faces, it's sort of beautiful when it all comes crashing down, at a bar in your hometown you moved away from three years ago. 

you're not green but you're growing up

I was with you when you bought your first rug. It was from Bed, Bath & Beyond, a beige color. You were so excited that before you got on the train you texted me, "I got a rug," and I told you to go home and sit on it. 

We made each other happy. 

I carried you with me everywhere but mostly you were with me at night- at home in my room, walking downtown, or drunkenly walking home. I would be with you while you would walk into a deli to get your favorite sandwich well after 2AM, or a bagel and coffee on the weekdays on your way to work; breakfast was your favorite. I was there after the many nights you'd drink and eat at the Ace Hotel with coworkers, nostalgia lane. I used to be jealous, but I don't think I could go there, back to the last place you were real. 
I was there that night your mother and brother got into a car accident and I could hear the worry in your voice. I wouldn't let you sleep without putting a smile on your face. You never slept. 
I was with you when you were hungover on a Sunday ordering Chinese food, looking out your bedroom window, rolling around on your bed, ready to start your next freelance piece, or plan for your busy week ahead.
I was with you everyday, minus a few where I made you mad, or you drove me crazy. You nicknamed me Hot Pocket, or Kelley Kapoor, and even though I'd pretend to be mad, I wasn't. 

You were with me that night I got trespassed from a bar and I couldn't stop crying on my porch. Or the night I took too many drugs and inevitably told you I loved you. You were there when my roommate spilled wine all over my laptop- I called you like you had all the answers, like you would know how to bring my lifeless Macbook back from the dead.
You were there when I was at the hospital after my sister had her baby. Or when I was in Brooklyn looking for good coffee. Or when I tore my tights and laughed about how they became "easy access". 

Since we had met, on and off, you'd be with me all the time. On my mind, in my thoughts, on the clock, waiting to hear your ringtone, hear your voice. But never, ever were we really right in front of each other. You were in New York. I was in Florida. Brooklyn. Gainesville. And even when we could have made all of these instances, these occurrences, these fantasies, something real- we didn't. You didn't. 

I don't know what hurts more after having someone in your life leave it for good- sharing plentiful memories with one another or having no memories together at all, just ideas, just dreams.

"You turn something negative and you destroy it."

When somebody you love tells you that you destroy things, it destroys you. 

You don't rush
You don't want
You don't push
You don't need

I fall
but you don't hurt
and I run, to not fall

And I can't Breathe

And I wanna cry but I don't wanna scare you
cause your so soft, and you move slow
and you're not green, but you're growing up

And I can't breathe

Florida Vs. New York

FLORIDA: 

"Just finish school first," said everyone. I didn't even need to think of specific conversations, they all just blended together. I knew that would be the right decision, the decision my parents would agree with, the route society would happily support. I knew many of my friends would tell me, "two years will go by fast," or "you'll be there before you know it" and I'd agree, because that's what I should do. It was rational. It was smart. I'd be "thinking about my future." What brings me the most money, what would be the most beneficial. 

"But what if I'm not happy?" 

And no one flinched. "School. School. School..." like a broken record I heard the word over and over. There was no grey area; everything had to be black or white. There was no neutral decision; Switzerland didn't exist. 

"You worked so hard to get into that school, school isn't supposed to make you happy, but it will later."

NEW YORK: 

"Just finish your degree here," said a few. Or others, "you can always go back to school." And the grey area that no one talked of in Florida became infinite, filled with ideas of what I could do, of what could happen now or in the future. It was a decision I was considering, a decision I wanted everyone else I cared about to support. I knew that wasn't going to be the case.

Bottom line, a selfish line, most people had the same word in mind, and instead of it sounding like a broken record it sounded like my favorite song on repeat: "Happiness. Happiness. Happiness..." And most of them would smile with excitement for me because they had a similar experience.

"New York is full of people who just did it. Who didn't think about what was going to happen, but they made it happen, because it was what they wanted. Because it made them happy."

____________________________________________________

If everything tells us to risk it, to leap without looking, to take the chance- in movies, fiction novels, your parents best bedtime story- when faced with the ultimatum, how are we supposed to do the right thing? 

To keep our selves from making mistakes? 

To think clearly, to plan ahead, to ponder the repercussions? 

What keeps us from not just doing when we want a happy ending? When that's what we dream about when we sleep and daydream about when we're awake?

"You're going to do what makes you happy, you always have. I'm just not sure it's the right thing to do at such a big risk of never going back to school." 

I smiled at my mother through the phone, my mother that knew me so well. There was no denial in her tone- it was diluted with worry and disappointment.
I ignored it. 

I knew what I wanted to happen. 

"Next summer everything is going to change," I paused.

 "If it already hasn't." 

not a fucking poem about October

"It feels like October" says the air

and the stars

and the bonfires igniting in dirty backyards

littered with beer cans and unwanted halloween candy

and the fake blood across your friends cheek

says our cold fingertips

and coupling friends

and anxious lips

and dusty boots pulled out of forgotten

corners of your closet 

Before you know it, October is almost over

 and rent is almost due

for November

and your roommate suddenly likes a boy

and all the kittens are going away to new homes

and your plans to travel to Brooklyn for halloween are

falling into place

faster than you planned

and you're giving your best friend
in Brooklyn
 advice while eating your own

words
about a boy that
consumes your mind
 that you met in
Manhattan
14 or so months ago

carving pumpkins didn't go well last year

so

this year you let it sit 

on

the windowsill

in

the fall sunshine 

or

what feels like fall for
Florida

and you smile because
you're happy 

if I could take the fire out from the water

You know that feeling that washes over you when you're walking alone down a dark road and the only street light goes out while you're standing underneath it? That's the only way I can really describe the emotion that occurred when I read what you said would be the last message you'd ever send me. I didn't feel lonely, or afraid, or even sad, but this strange mixed feeling of all three. 

The feeling of the only light illuminated burning out to leave you only with the moon. 

I didn't delete you from my life because you told me to, or delete your friends numbers, or all the history of us on my cellphone, or any social network where we could reach each other, I did it for you. For your mind.
For your heart.
For both of our sanity.
Because I was a bad thing, terrible thing.

I did it because it was all or nothing for you, and I wanted the middle of that, the comfortable spot in your bed, but away from your heart. Far, far away from what made you love me.

I can't say eating pizza will taste the same for awhile. Or listening to Wolf Parade. Or seeing lightning bolts drawn on paper. Or watching that Scott Pilgrim movie that you loved. Or drinking a Sierra Nevada. Or fucking in the shower. Or hearing about the new episode of Breaking Bad. Or adoring sunflowers. Or espresso- the list could go on for a little, but before I could find everything that reminded me of you, time would pass. And you would heal- forget. And maybe between that time you'd hate me instead of love me or miss me, and I'd miss your bed, your chest, your comfort and hair. But I'd be okay too. And maybe we'd be friends again, like before you wrote me that song and sang it at all your shows. Before I got in your bed a year ago after your 20th birthday. Before feelings were felt and attraction grew into infatuation.

The weird thing with street lights, the thing I don't understand each time it happens, is that the same street light that went out on you a few weeks ago will light up right as you walk by. And the feeling is completely different. 

It's a safe feeling- that the dark road is just a familiar path you took earlier that day when the sun was in the sky and you were singing, 

"give me your eyes, I need sunshine."

everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

It makes me so sad that I have so much to write about and I haven't documented anything in what feels like ages: moving into a new house that I love full of kittens and sunlight and good coffee, dating the boy I dated a year ago who loves me and I'm fighting to love back, starting school at a university I never imagined getting into that both my father and grandfather graduated from, watching my mother become sober and start life over not selling drugs, reconnecting with New York after my best friend moved there to follow her heart while it's making mine go crazy, my favorite bar going out of business, the one I met everyone I love, the one I spent many nights there finding myself and seeing you and her during my darkest days and drinking until everything became very blurry and then very clear.

But then again it's just life happening that goes undocumented, and it happens all the time in these incidents that make me happy or make me cry and it effects everyone around me, naturally, like an earthquake- a book falls off a shelf, or a glass cup breaks on the cracked tile, or maybe your favorite shirt gets carried away in the rubble, the catastrophe, the beautiful disaster. But everyone picks up their fallen books, or cleans the glass up after putting some shoes on, and they may never get that favorite shirt back though they carry on. 

In short little sentences, I'll get it out though, because I need to. Because these things have happened. And time has still gone by- sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one still lingering. 

It took her under two months after we had left New York in June. Three days before she left, she finally was ready to spill the news- she was moving to Brooklyn. Just like that, it happened. Charme stood before me to say goodbye in my house that she was supposed to live in with me, and in an instant the floodgates opened. We cried and it was sad but it was going to be okay she said, because I'd go visit and two years would go by fast. I'd be there with her someday sooner than we could both imagine. I believed her, but it was hard, because time seemed to sludge by. I couldn't be more excited to be there in December next to her, to feel apart of something bigger than myself again. 

My house is lovely, my new roommates are humble, there are animals constantly running around the rooms keeping it perfectly chaotic, the windows have sunshine billowing through them, the AC has been off and the weather has been allowing it- I feel happy and organized, but I'm not. At least it's the perfect anchor, the perfect idea of what I'd like my life to be like someday. 

Mars Pub is closed. It will never be again. I will never see the same group of regulars walk in alone and sober, or wasted at the end of the night and lonely, ready to play pool or avoid an ex lover or run into them, write on the bathroom walls or throw up in the toilets or do drugs off the sink with their best friend, taking phone pictures in the graffitied mirror that read above it "hipster fuck", pee behind the building when the bar was too busy, punch the wall of the drug court office next door, give out cigarettes like candy... at least that's a short list of what I did. I can't recall another bar, or house, or building other than the one I grew up in that felt like home besides Mars. It was made up of this family that was only understood by the people who constantly went there and knew each other, but outside the bar barely saw each other at all. I remember the first time I went there vividly, drunkenly, during the first Wet Paint Party, and the last night it was open. It was a school night, a Monday, and once the beer ran out kids just started bringing their own. As the night was ending and it hit 2 A.M., people chanted "Mars! Mars! Mars!" over and over while Gabe and Melissa and the rest of the crew stood on the bar before everyone they had served and gotten close to and eventually loved in their own ways. And there was anger and resentment in the air mixed in with beer and broken glass and everyone was so happy in that moment, in all those moments at that bar, but then the sadness came and it was heavy- I don't think I've ever cried so hard in public. 

Cassie, a beautiful girl I had met there that at first was standoffish but is now one of my favorite ladies I've met in my time here, she held my face as I cried and called me baby and told me to look at her and repeat, "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." And at first I couldn't but eventually I got lost in her eyes that were brown and watery, that reflected mine, and I felt better. 

I had lost something apart of me, apart of the reason I had loved Gainesville so much. Mars was my favorite planet in the solar system that is downtown- any other planet can't compare.

They frightened the babies and you know they've got two flashing eyes

Summer's over. 

The thought sat on my shoulders like a heavy child, or spread through my thoughts like a disease. It multiplied and duplicated and consumed everything, sat on my windowsill like dust and followed me around like my shadow. Driving home to meet my new niece, Brooke and Matts new baby girl born Sunday late afternoon, I let the thought of summer's absence go along with my concept of time.

And all of a sudden I'm driving through the loop singing along to Brand New and I'm in high school. And then I'm driving down A1A to Capistrano Drive to sneak into the first boys house to ever "break my heart." And next thing you know I'm with my friends driving to a nightclub on xanax and shots of tequila my freshman year of college. Or driving alone to my mothers stoned and sleepy after 4AM to find her passed out in the patio. I kept driving and all of these memories, instances, happenings, they all came flooding back. Because they happened last summer, or the summer before, or a summer during high school, and they meant so much at the time. Even now, they mean something, built something up, taught a lesson. They're a part of me- today and the summers to come- they would echo with the new moons and sun showers. They would echo in empty beer cans and old tubes of unused lipstick.

Time flies by and then I'm walking into the hospital, not for death this time, but for new life. A new life that is about to begin and develop and one day become a person with feelings, problems, and a past. A person that one day will enjoy driving through the loop with her windows down listening to her favorite band. A girl one day that will drive to meet the boy that breaks her heart. A teenager that will one day try prescription drugs and sneak into nightclubs with her friends. And one day she'll be sad summer's over. And it will happen each year, and each year she'll think back to the last.

The woman at the front desk says, "Where are you headed? Oh, that's the fourth floor, the babies floor- I can tell you're going there with that big smile on your face."

I walked into my sisters room at the hospital. And there is her new born baby girl, less than 24 hours old, wrapped up in a blanket placed ever so carefully on the bed. She was sleeping, and everyone in the room seemed calmly excited, a silent buzz I could catch between everyones eyes. 

I held little Harper and I started crying because I could feel it, her future and past that would one day weigh on her shoulders like a heavy child, spread in her thoughts like a disease. 

then meet me after the world with the shivers

The look on his face was eager, anxious, and maybe a little hungover. His shirt was wet and heavy with sweat the way mine was on moving day one week before. The difference besides timing was I moved just a few streets away- he was moving a few states, heading North, Chicago bound. With the moving truck basically packed, his old room empty and clean, Taylor looked oddly ready for this huge change. His friends, roommates, and even his roommates dog looked more afraid, more sad, even more reluctant. I kept making jokes, talking fast, talking over him to avoid the bubble in my throat that was coming up quick like bile- I choked back tears and tried to keep smiling, anything for him to realize how happy I was for him, how excited I was for his different life. I rushed to my car using the excuse that I'd be late for work to escape the goodbye- I wasn't good with goodbyes. This was meant to be temporary I reminded myself, but at the moment of separation I knew it would feel so permanent. Because I had no idea when I'd actually see him again- life too easily can get in the way, and most the time it's excusable. Things happen, time passes, and a goodbye just makes it so painfully obvious.
All that we've gone through, watching each other change and transform, loss of hair and beards, experiencing death and heart ache, watching the absence of seasons always present in the Florida sun. Drunk or rolling, happy or upset, stoned or sober- each memory separately and then all at once came rising up. And they told me, "you never know just how much someone is going to mean to you when you meet them." I thought back to when I met you over a year ago, I just thought I was dancing next to a stranger at a bar I might never go to again. Who could guess? I knew we both had no idea. And that was sort of beautiful.
I drove away and you stood on the back porch as you watched me. The sun was behind you and it outlined your body with a golden glow. I waved goodbye and awkwardly blew you a kiss, the tips of my fingers hitting the roof of my car. You kept your composure, confidence, and cool as you always had before. The CD you burned me was playing, incidentally my favorite Animal Collective song "Fireworks." It sang:

"What's the day?" "What you doing?"

"How's your food?" "How's that song?"

                        man it passes right by me, it's behind me, now it's gone

and I can't lift you up cause my mind is tired
 it's family beaches that I desire

that sacred night where we watched the fireworks

they frightened the babies 
and you know they've got two flashing eyes

and if they are color blind, they make me feel

 That you're only what I see sometimes.

If I could remember more. . .

The little things that occur and move me internally have become infinite after the past two days:

being surrounded by your friends and strangers as the clocks ticks past midnight, blowing out candles on the birthday cake with your name on it as they sing "happy birthday" through chaotic cheering and champagne bottles popping

being given anything at all just because someone finds something and thought about you, or has the free drugs to spare, or enjoys seeing you laugh or smile- not just because it's your birthday and that's when you're allowed to give gifts with no questions asked

when authority and the law isn't so relentless in ruining a good time, when a cop takes off their mask and relates as a human instead of a power-hungry pig and gets in his patrol car to drive away after saying, "I remember when I turned 21- chug a few beers for me," and you smile and go do exactly as he says because you can

when a cute, quiet boy is in and out of your sight all night-socializing, smoking, smiling- and then maybe looking at you from across a noisy room, through drunk conversations and careless movements and he winks at you and that wink sails across the room and you smile because you're drunk and honest

having your birthday cake wiped all over your face

wiping it all over that cute, quiet boys face

having your best friend wipe it off yours while you drunkenly ask "can you still see it? is it still there?" and turn your head loosely watching things happen around you

waking up with it in your hair

throwing up in sinks and later denying it because you didn't remember

receiving birthday cards that dance and sing

friends reconnecting and reuniting after a hard time, after not talking or being apart

making out with a good friend because you both were happily drunk and it felt right against hallways and cars

watching the night fade and sun rise and illuminate the trash in your yard and the dirt on your floors

admitting to your best friend that you miss her and want her around more as sunlight catches the ends of her long hair 

hearing songs you used to hear on the radio years before while everyone dances and sings along

smoking cigarettes inside your house because you didn't think about how much you'd regret it the next day

feeling infinite in the amount of love you have for all of your friends and knowing they have it too-

 because moments like these, nights like these, they're infinite in the way they move me and they're unforgettable- if I could remember. 

everything is connected and beautiful

"You are the most connected person I've ever met."

There are over 7 billion people on this earth all with different stories leading different lives in different places. It's remarkable that you could filter through all these individuals and find a pair that may be more similar than you could imagine. And that's the beauty in that, the way we explore and search for people much like ourselves and create a bond even with the ones we share nothing with at all. What's terrifying is that you don't know everyones story- not only can you not read a book by its cover, but you can't read a book that won't open at all- each story is unique.

The best part about this is the interconnections, the invisible wires that tie us all together sometimes without any recognition, until there's discovery- you can be across the country, or at the local grocery store, or a busy airport, and hit one of these wires- you collide into a familiar story. And that familiar story might be your best friend from high school, or the sister of that kid that passed away last year, or the mother of a boy you used to love, or a stranger that smiled to brighten your day, and it's just sort of incredible. If you're feeling lonely or lost, out of place or even estranged, right in front of you is a piece of your story, whether it's part of your past or present. You may not even know this collision could set off this series of events, the little interconnections working their magic and making this story entwine with part of your future.

It's little things like these, little details about our race and lives and relationships that just keep me going forward. Because not everyones story will I benefit from or even feel comfortable with experiencing, but it all ties together into a bigger picture- 

I'm the artist. 

the weekend we greeted the sunrise

untitled.

The tension was undeniable until it became a friction and then a flame: hair pulling, fast breathing, twisting and turning and sweating, biting, pulling, laughing, grinning, kissing, pinning, unleashing;

it was like the length of his legs fit the curves of my body.

Love making minus the love wasn't so bad after all. 

May observations.

Observation 1: In front of my house each day I see strangers park their car and walk up to retrieve information from our "for rent" sign- we weren't renewing our lease and our landlord put an advertisement up immediately. It was a loud sign with colors like red and white and it taunted me; this house by the end of the summer would not be called "home" anymore. The variety of people who stopped by to take a second glance at our brick house was vast- sometimes it was an older man, probably married and with children at home. Was he happy? Did he support his family and tuck his children in at night? Was his wife still as in love with him as she was on their wedding day? Other times it's a girl my age peering through the windows. I wonder if she felt confident in her dark purple skinny jeans, in her own skin. I wonder if she had a boyfriend, what he might be like, and if they were in love or just lovers. Was she looking into the windows and thinking, "I can make memories here," as I did looking through the exact same windows one year ago? I could only hope, I sighed, as I watched her walk back to her car and drive away.

Observation 2: "In less than a month we'll be on the streets of New York City," Charme and I would say to each other as if to keep the idea from escaping us. Every night where we would find ourselves in some crazy situation on some new drug at some random kids patio, we'd look at each other and just know- together, New York would be chaotic, unpredictable, and unforgettable. Sometimes we'd squeal like girls in excitement- other times we would just smile really silently and very big, eyes mutually wide and anxious. I was anxious for other things, too- a boy that lived up there that I hadn't seen since the first and only night we had ever spent with each other on the streets in the rain till sunrise- it was something out of a movie, each scene captured in my memory and some on a camera I will never see again. I think about it sometimes and it's like conjuring up something forgotten, more like a dream I woke up from than an incident that occurred in real life. Each time I hear from him, my heart drops as its beat rises; no matter how much time passes, it's always the same. There's something there that keeps me on my toes and it lies where I left my heart couch surfing in New York just a few months ago- in Brooklyn.

Observation 3: I miss your stupid expensive bike, your nasally voice, and the dog you hardly took care of (but obviously loved so much). I miss your small bed and the way you would tell me every morning "I'm so lucky to have you" or "you make me so happy," and I'd roll around in your sheets half naked and make my morning noises in response. I miss your tattoos, your secrets, and love for pizza. I remember days and nights blending together with you and how natural that felt. I also remember waking up one day and not knowing what day of the week it was- where had time gone? And then the clock finally started clicking. I don't miss your jealousy, chain smoking, and snoring. I don't miss your clouded ideas of the future, immaturity, and thin hair. I don't miss your irresponsibility, your bad habits, and your stubbornness. But most of all, I don't miss us- I just miss you and the way you can make everyone in a room laugh. I don't like unhappy endings, but in reality, they exist much more often than a "happy ending". In this tale, the story was short. The climax barely rose before it began to crumble back down again, and then like that it was over. And you've made it clear it should stay over, a book once read and left to never be opened again.

You remind me of home.