Scarecrow

The sharp edges of emerald leaves snag my skin, leaving a rash at my neck that flourishes in rosy bumps. It burns like the body of the little girl that I found in the middle of the field. Dirty finger nails clawing to relieve the sensation only, in the end, make it worse. The stalks are higher than my head now. Ready for their gold to be harvested soon.

I retreat from the field to the hill that overlooks our land. The old red barn sits in silence behind me. The image of her corpse fogs my mind. I look for her in the maze of corn, but I cannot see her under the canopy of green. The hay-made-man is the tallest of everything in the field. Watching over her body as she decomposes in between the rows.

She was my friend. We walked to school together every day since second grade. Dust covered tennis shoes scuffing along the gravel road. Pink bags bounced side by side on our backs. Her hair was waist long, pretty girls always have long hair. She wore it in braids and I did too. Until Dean Smith spit a piece of gum into my hair in the first grade and my father cut it to a bob. It’s been this short ever since.

Her braids still looked perfect, even matted by the dirt and blood.

Our crops won’t be able to be sold after this.

Fluids and puss leak from the holes in her body, slowly sinking into the dark, wet dirt. We have the best corn in the whole county because our soil is soft and fertile. I look at the Scarecrow, he smiles at me because we both know a secret.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

I can see her coming now, but I know that she is already gone. Her eyes look into mine, hollow. Lifeless. Not like they were before. She sits down beside me, she does not smell like her corpse out in the corn. Her braids shine in the sunlight, her cheeks are full and freckles bridge across her nose. She wrinkles it as she inhales the stench of her own murder.

 

What’s that smell?

It’s the girl in the field.

I’m tired of your games.

She died playing a game.

 

We were playing house by the barn when the Scarecrow jumped down from his post. I could tell he was different—not the straw man that my father had stuffed three years back. This Scarecrow had a breath. And limbs that moved on their own.

The leaves shook as he made his way up to us, slowly. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, until he reached us at the top of the hill. His face wasn’t made of hay, I could see it through the holes in the burlap sack around his head. I had seen him before, I think—almost every day on our walk to school. Old, but not as old as dad.

He is dressed up early for Halloween, she whispered to me. We both giggled.

He flashed us a stitched smile and offered out his hands.

We followed him down back to the cornfield, weaving our way through the thick stalks. Careful not to rub against the rigid leaves. The summer heat weighing us down, sinking into the dirt. I looked up at the open sky, the only sight that freed me from the cage of green.

When the Scarecrow said that he just wanted to play house with my friend, it wasn’t fun anymore. Why didn’t he understand that we all play? It’s mean to tell someone to quit.

Let’s just go home, she said after the Scarecrow started talking funny like that.

He didn’t like that.

He reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a blade sharper than those of the leaves. I yelled for her to run, but fear struck, she froze. Opposite reactions deemed our fate. I ran not knowing which way was out, and I didn’t look back.

It’s just a game. It’s just a game.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

This morning I had to go back and check—to make sure that it wasn’t a nightmare. I couldn’t remember quitting our game, or my friend going home. I walked back out to that spot in the field and saw the hole he left in her chest. Her clothes were scattered or on backwards and her shoes on the wrong feet. She didn’t look like the girl I had known, but I knew deep down it was her.

Dad always said not to play in the fields and not to talk to strangers. But when the Scarecrow said hello, his voice was familiar as his smile. I didn’t think he was a stranger. If I can’t keep the secret, he will know it was me that broke the rules.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

Blisters pop. Fluid oozes over and in between my fingers. I lift my hand to my nose, it smells sour. There are blisters all over her body. Red and boiling with fury from the afternoon sun. She will be unrecognizable by the time the sun goes down. Or by the time my father’s combine sweeps the fields in a few short days.

 

Her body will be mangled by its teeth.

It doesn’t really have teeth, you know.

Doesn’t matter. It will destroy her either way.

There is no one out there!

Go look for yourself.

 

My friend looks twice as big as the greenery in the field when she stands up, her gaze set upon the straw-like man in the midst of a Mid-west sea. Her size reduces every step closer she gets until she is swallowed by the leaves. She is not strong like me—not yet. She won’t be able to stomach what she finds. The insects will buzz loud in her ears and she will know that she is getting close. The sound and the stench will swarm all around her and stop her dead in her tracks. She will look to the Scarecrow. He will smile down at her a familiar smile.

Her body must be raw by now. I remember her face, soft and innocent, with lilac tinted skin under a blanket of morning dew. Before the sun came up, you would have thought that she was sleeping with opened eyes or still gazing at the stars—dreaming from dusk until dawn about things little girls dream of. The man in the middle of the field could keep the crows away from her, but not the bugs. Her body shed away the morning chill and invited the larvae to come out and play. Maggots made home and dug tunnels in and out of her cheeks but no crows dare come near.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

If the scavenging critters save her body from the torture of the combine, she will yellow like the ocean of husks in the fall. Hair brittle and breaking away with the leaves. The flies will all die and there will be nothing left to consume her—or nothing left of her to consume. She will turn blue under the blanket of frost that creeps in early November.

But she will not get peace.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

She is lost out there not like a buried treasure, but like the perfect title of a small-town newspaper waiting to be headlined. No mud-crusted wooden chest that reveals priceless heirlooms when the lock is cracked, but a near-full set of soil-stained little bones—photographed a countless number of times until the shutter of the camera shatters them to pieces. Hundreds of rolls of yellow crime scene tape will be spent marking off our fields. My father will be upset at the set back of his harvesting schedule. Crops will be lost as the investigators caravan into the abyss of the cornfield. Aim toward the Scarecrow, I will tell them. You will find her there.

Some of them will not be able to handle it. They will cover their nostrils and mouth and flinch away at the sight of her sun-scorched remains. Some will think of their own children and become ill wondering who could ever do this to a child? They’ve trained for events such as this, but never thought they would use it. Her odor will smell sweet. Like when you walk into the hog-shed during the hottest point of the summer. Urine and feces baking under the floor slots. Breathe in through the nose and the rank smell will sting your airway.

Squeals come from the piglets in the barn, they sound just like she did. Why didn’t he chop her up and feed her to the pigs? Pigs eat everything, no one ever would have found her then.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

I tug at the husk of an ear I pulled this morning before I found her. Leaves getting lighter after each layer I peel away until only pale silk strands remain. I brush them away like the hair of the girl when I knelt down beside her this morning. This is what keeps the corn from getting burnt. I wonder if we pulled her out now, would we be able to peel her skin until it’s soft again?

 

Rustling comes from the field in front of me. An emerald leaf catches her neck. She doesn’t flinch. Just like I didn’t flinch. With every step back, her size overcomes the corn once again. A rash is forming at her neck when she sits back down by me.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

She looks like me.

She is you.

 

Why didn’t you help me?

I told you to run.

 

The smell of urine invades my nostrils. Her light blue leggings are damp at the private area. She cries.

 

I’m sorry!

Why did it have to be me?

 

It could have been me.

He will come for you too, you know.

 

My name in the headlines. My father’s combine mutilating the body of his own daughter. Maggots crawling in and out of my soft tissue. The sun pulling blisters out of my skin. My odor that they smell from the city limits line. My screams that screech like the pigs. Or my flesh that ends up in their bellies. When he comes again he won’t make the mistake of leaving me in the field like he did with her.

 

The scarecrow comes down from his pole and makes his way through the rows to us. He emerges from the leaves, one snags at the dusty canvas sack around his head, blood soaks into the fabric. Matte black buttons stitched into place meet both of our eyes. He smiles at us. We smile back. Because we all know the secret now.

I know that it is her he has come for—not me, not yet. He reaches out a rusty glove, hay and straw poking out at the seams. She looks at me, like I am supposed to tell her what to do. I sit there, empty, she knows that she is long gone. The glove crunches as she takes his hand. She says nothing. I say nothing. And again, their size diminishes as they make their way back to the field. I sit and watch like I have been since I found her this morning.

In a few minutes, I will not know where they went. The scarecrow will not climb back up onto his pole, he will return to his role in our town. The unusual suspect. If I choose to break the silence of our secret, he will still find a way to get me. Obsession never dies.

The crows are free to peck at her body. Their cries are already echoing in the hot, heavy air. A victory caw, because they think that they have won. They peel away the burnt skin like I imagined, making it pink again.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

The rash has crept from my neck to my chest. Blood caked under my index finger tells me that I should stop scratching. But I will sit and scratch and pick and claw until there is a hole in me too. My father will come out to the barn and find me scratching myself in silence. He will pause, because he will see that the Scarecrow is not in his place and the crows are circling above the center of the lush field.

 

What’s that smell?

It’s the girl in the field.

 

Don’t play games.

She died playing a game.

 

Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.

 

I can hear the sirens coming now.

Abruddies

It’s officially been a week since my journey to Dublin commenced, and I cannot have had a better experience than the one that I have gotten over the past seven days. Not only are the program coordinators incredible, as well as my professors, but the experience has truly been made by the students that I am with.

It wasn’t even two hours before I had met almost everyone in the program at he O’Hare International Airport before I began to bond with everyone. As is natural, most people (including myself) were slightly reserved at first. However, we instantly began bonding over classes taken at the University and previous traveling experiences. Oh– and books, of course books. More members began to trickle in over the course of those two or so hours and the conversation never ceased. Affirming my hunch that I would make some good pals during this program.

My roommates and friends are all scattered to the winds this summer, which is both happy and sad. I feared that I wouldn’t be able to open myself in the way that I have learned to over this past year. As I reached out and let myself be comfortable with my classmates, I have indefinitely overcome that irrational fear. Perhaps, it is because my peers were feeling the same way that I was. But, we are english majors, and english majors like to talk– a lot. No shame, because I am a storyteller and an open book (which I can only blame and thank my wonderful mother for).

It has only been seven days and I feel that I have met some of the most important people in my life, being able to draw different and unique energy from each and every one of them. They are continuously inspiring me to be more honest in myself, more confident in myself, and more faithful in myself. I do not know that they know these things, but sometimes silent appreciations are the best. In and out of the classroom I can feel myself growing, and I have everyone that I’ve been with this past week to thank.

My lesson from this week (from an introverted extrovert) is not to hold yourself back from anything. Go, and if you don’t like it, go back. No one is stopping you, no one is forcing you. The power is within yourself, and you have more control over a situation than you think. Trust the people around you, and work as a team.

I can’t wait to see where my abruddies (abroad buddies) will be by the end of our now five weeks.

Dublin, Here I Come.

As I’ve been preparing for this excursion for almost two months, I have had a lot of time to interpret how I feel about leaving home for six weeks. Aside from the obvious excitement from being accepted to the Irish Writing Program, I have had a lot of unrecognizable feelings that I wasn’t sure how to address until now. I have come to the conclusion that I am an introverted person with extroverted characteristics, and while my confidence in my abilities to adapt are strong they are not unwavering.

I have debated back and forth with myself multiple times a day if I am truly capable of leaving the country and home that I have known all of my life, and be able to thrive in an unknown place. My friends and family probably do not know that their presumptions that I will do amazing things in Dublin are actually my reassurances. The idea of being away from my family for six weeks terrifies me, not because I am afraid that I won’t make new friends and connections, but because I have so much love and appreciation for them and I will miss them so much.

My brother’s graduation party was last Saturday, and as if he wasn’t dreading those conversations that consist of the same three small-talk questions (Are you happy to be done? Where do you want to go? What do you plan to do there?) I was feeling the same way.

“Are you happy to be done with your second year?”

Shit, I only have two years left?

“Yes, I’m very happy to be done.”

“So I heard that you’ll be in Ireland this summer, what are you doing there?”

“I got accepted to a writing program through the University of Iowa.”

I can’t believe that I’m actually going.

“Oh, that’ll be so fun!”

“Yes, I’m very excited! I think I really need a break from Iowa.”

I live in Iowa, I go to school in Iowa, I’m from Iowa… yeah, I need to get out of here.

Then the conversation usually dwindles after several more small-talk questions and I am usually left thinking, Can I really do this?

My mind thinks in pictures. Images are the best way for me to recall a memory. I was sitting by my open bedroom window, thinking about how much I will miss the view (which, to most people, would not be considered a “view” at all). I remembered a conversation that my boyfriend and I had one night while looking at this same view.

“I love this,” he said. “This is, like, the perfect image of the midwest when I think of it. The pine trees, the windmill, a single street lamp.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve tried to take a picture of it so many times, but it never turns out the way we see it.”

I thought about how used to this I was, how comfortable I am here. And how comfortable I was with him when we had that conversation. He’s been gone (at an internship in Singapore) for exactly two weeks now. He was brave enough to leave, now it’s my turn to be brave.

I am not scared of being abroad, or this program that I am about to do. It will be a catalyst in my life as a writer and as a traveler, the person who will come back from this experience will not be the same one that is writing to you now. She will be stronger, brighter eyed, wider minded, more humbled.

I am extremely blessed with my support system and the opportunity to study in Dublin. After sifting through the uncertainty and admitting to myself that I am a little nervous, I feel as though I can fully submit myself to this experience and appreciate the way that it will move me. I am going to thrive in Dublin. I am strong enough to do this. I am open to change and accepting of the lessons that it will teach me. I am ready to grow. I am ready to explore. I am ready for Dublin.

Now it’s Dublin’s turn to get ready for me.

Cigarettes

I run my thumb over the wheel of the lighter, catching the nearly unnoticeable notches of my fingerprint in the silver ridges. The cigarette dangles from between my dry lips. Unlit menthol toxins flirt with my olfactory bulb, flipping the switch like a light. I can feel the tip becoming soggy. Light me, it dares.

So I do.

Cli— click, whoosh.

The orange cherry bursts to life. I inhale deeply, letting the familiar chemicals fill the empty spaces inside of me. A gentle burn trails down my throat. I imagine the smoke swirling within my corrupted lungs, adding to the thick charcoal wall that cases them. I release my head, shut eyes to the sky that I envision above me. Darkness. Soft glow of the city not so far away. Sirens. Car horns.

Exhale.

I remember my days as a young girl in the midwest. A night like this would be captured in a different light. No light. Just the stars that shine from a million miles away and a single street lamp . The rattle of unknown creatures scampering in the brush. Cicadas humming a tune to the heavy summer air. Crickets and frogs chirping back and forth, communicating a language that humans have assumed onto them. Fireflies dancing in the distance. Dew accumulating in the soft, lush grass. A light breeze awakening a tired soul.

I lift the cigarette to my cracked lips.

Inhale.

Something brushes up against me and catches me off guard. I snap my head to the left— it’s a young man hurrying down the fire escape. Relief floods over me. I nervously look around. The metal of the stairs digs into my tender skin and I quickly wonder why it’s even worth it to crawl out of my window for five minutes of vulnerability for a cigarette.

Exhale.

Flick.

The ash tumbles down half of a flight, falling through the holes in the stairs, barely catching the stranger I just encountered. My body shudders at the thought of him. Silent, fleeting. A tear stripes my cheek with wetness. I wipe it away with my tattered sleeve.

Inhale.

The almighty tobacco buzz creeps to my head now, numbing my brain. Don’t think so hard, the smoke echoes in my mind. The tears continue. I glance downward and see the man from the stairs hit the pavement. A girl runs up to his side, a graceful collision, and he holds her almost as if he thought that he might never get to do so again.

It must be nice to live in a relationship without fear. To not have a constant shadow of the past lurking around every corner, waiting to jump out at you with teeth bared, snarling. Look at me, it demands.

Exhale.

I watch the smoke roll over itself in the glow of the street lamps until it is just another piece of the negative space. I notice that I’m shaking, I slam my sweaty palm to my forehead.

I have always hated the term “fucking”. It sounds dirty, emotionless. Even when there is no love present there are still feelings— although I’ve only ever experienced displeasure and disconnect.

Even through the hatred and animosity I have towards the men that use me, I continue to make broken love to them. Giving myself away like a box of free kittens. One after another, I tell myself that I don’t deserve this. But it’s hard to keep that mentality. After all this time I have just become so desensitized to it all. I’m like a puppet being controlled by the terrors of my past.

Inhale.

Short exhale.

Inhale.

Any shrink would categorize me quicker than I could get the first sentence out. They would open to the “Managing Sexually Abused Patients” chapter of the diagnosis manual and spit out text book explanations as to why I have these “symptoms” of self loathing feelings, why I sleep with any man that shows interest, why I can’t find security within myself. Then they would use their ball point pen to write me off a prescription that is just as slimy as their morals. Pills. Pills are the answer.

Exhale.

Flick.

Inhale.

I bounce my legs fast. I look down at my stained hightop sneakers. A little piece of ash sits upon the rubber toe.

There is no chance of me finding someone who can put me back together, I’ve been knocked off of the wall far too many times. It’s a miracle there are still pieces of me at all. Shattered glass still sparkles, but if you get too close you’ll bleed.

Exhale.

I smash the fragile cigarette to the dull brick wall, kick the ash from my shoe, and climb back through the window of my apartment praying for the strength to make it through just one more day.

4:42 AM

I was dreaming of war, something that I didn’t do often. Now, I have never killed anyone. Not even in a dream. But, I found myself with a gun to a stranger’s chest and an increased heart rate reminding me that I needed to make a decision.

How does someone who absolutely detests violence come to be dreaming about being a soldier?

I tried to reason with myself and the others around me. “Kill her,” her own brothers even said. It seemed to be that I was the only one who was really debating sparing her. Tears began to stream down my face. I knew that I had a job to protect the woman that everyone was shooting at, amazing how she hadn’t been shot already.

I also knew that if I let this soldier live, she would just go back to doing the same thing. And it would show the other soldiers that I wasn’t, in fact, cut out for this. We would probably wind up in a similar situation down the road. Having so much power over another’s life terrified me beyond a point of reason.

I will never know what my dream self did, because I awoke to a sun barely rising on a foggy Thursday morning. 4:42 AM. The heat of the June night would soon evolve to a greater humidity when the sun crept up over the full tree line.

I rolled over in the gray tangle of sheets that I had created in the night. I rubbed my eyes so hard that I began to see stars in my head. I breathed in two deep breaths before hitting my feet to the carpet.

My rheumatic legs began to wake up when I walked over to the windows that dripped with perspiration. I looked out into the distance only to find fog and a dark blue sky with an amber ombre beginning. Everything looked so peaceful. Birds chirping came into my ears. I felt a small comfort in my hollow heart, knowing that my reality wasn’t how it seemed to be in my dream.

Tiny bumps arose on my bare skin, reminding me of the warm bed I had abandoned. I crept away from the window to wrap up alone in a bed for two. I found no solace when the bed had gone cold so quickly.

I hoped to dream of a time when there would be someone to keep the blankets heated when I got up for a moment in the night, or someone to hold me when I dreamt about a war I did not want to fight in.

I closed my eyes and tried to beat the rising sun with sleep. With another deep breath, I was quickly falling back to unconsciousness.

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.” – Ernest Hemingway

It’s difficult to go to bed only wrapped in emotions. I miss being tucked in with safe arms.

I wake up to cold, drowsy mornings, still intoxicated with sleep, and I remember how nice it was to be slightly too warm when I opened my eyes and saw your beating chest, tangled up in worn out sheets.

I’m so tired of hearing myself cry the things that I wish I would have said.

Daydreams of you coming over just to catch up flirt with the sliver of hope I still have, smaller than the tiniest phase of the crescent moon. It hangs lower in my heart than my diminishing sadness, surrounded by a dark velvet sky without stars. I’d fill you in on all the things you’ve missed and laugh at the unnecessary distance we’ve pushed into every inch that lies between us.

You ask me how I’m doing and I tell you, “I’m just fine.” But that’s all I am; just fine. I have seen better days and I have seen far worse. Happiness touches me and melts like rain on snow, it comes then it goes.

I guess it’s both a blessing and a curse having a mind for many words. Because I sit staring at the draining battering of my dimmed screen and gaze over the lines I wrote about you. Artists understand how beautifully tragic it is that most inspiration comes from a broken heart. Writers understand how beautifully, tragically twisted it is that most inspiration comes from a broken heart and how you can spill the aching contents of your soul into something so simple, black letters on a white page, and still not feel satisfied when you’re done. It’s a reminder but it’s art and I crave it.

Wanted

Every morning when she opened her eyes to see the day for the first time, she told herself that she was not going to be sad anymore. But each day it became incredibly more difficult, because she looks at the world in a different way. She doesn’t look at the world with her eyes, she looks at the world with her heart. She sees love everywhere– and not always romantic love, but enough love to make her crave the feeling of being wanted. She wants to be loved the way that the stars love the moon, the way the writer loves the ink that spills from her pen.

She cares so much, maybe a little too much. That’s why she felt so empty when he left, and why she didn’t just fall, she crashed.

The pain pulls the hope out of her when the sun sets, but she holds onto it… because it is the only reminder that what they had was real. She wastes an exorbitant amount of the energy that she somehow still has trying to hide. She wants to hide from him, hide from the mess that they have made— a mess yet to be cleaned. But mostly she wants to hide from herself. She didn’t want to face the emotions that she knew were on the verge of exploding. Because if she lets them explode, she will see them; if she sees them then she has to acknowledge that they are real. So real, it scares her beyond a point of her own mental sanity.

She begs God to make her feelings pass– but not really. The only reason she wants them to disappear is because it hurts too much to feel them.

She remembers hearing that usually you miss the feeling more than the person them self, and how could you not miss the feeling? But she constantly stumbles upon herself over and over again missing the boy– but that’s what he is; a boy. She understands that he needs time to become a man, but her biggest fear is that when that time comes it won’t be her that he wants.

She misses him, and she doesn’t know what to do. How could a place that once made you so satisfied and safe and content simmer to ashes in a matter of days? I liked us better when we were on fire, but didn’t burn. The thing about smoldering embers is that they can’t be relit, they can only glow a dim, beautiful light until they die away.

Believe her when she says that she has seen better days, because she walked with him among the stars and moon. Now she searches for a way out of the dark.

 

A Letter to 2015

Goodbye 2015,

I know that is neither the correct nor the formal way to address the head of a letter, however, you are going away. The only time I will ever see you again will be in my mind when I play back our memories.

If I’m being honest— which I always am— you were a fucking disaster. Due to my own negligence, I promised to focus on myself during our time together and fell a distance short. Looking back, I realize that I told myself one thing then did something completely different. I started off with you lying to myself about what it was that was holding me back from what I truly wanted. It was me. You taught me that I am truly the only one who can stand in the way of my own happiness and that it is important to figure myself out before I try and figure anyone else out.

In a way I suppose I did find myself a bit more than I thought I had just a few minutes ago— and I tell myself that the year after you will be for myself too— but the truth is that every year is about me. As selfish as it sounds it is utterly true. Each year (past and future) shapes me into the person I am becoming. And I suppose it’s odd to put it that way because I don’t ever expect myself to “become” someone. I used my time with you to become who I am now, and objectively speaking, the years in the future will have done so too.

You taught me that I will never settle. I will always be in search for a way to evolve myself. I have come to terms with the messes that I have made this year which ultimately led to what I referred to you as, a disaster. At this point in writing I have realized that yes, indeed, you were a disaster. But a beautiful disaster.

A mess of the failed words, failed romances, failed efforts, failed jokes, failed emotions, and failed promises shattered into a mural that now covers the floor. I was walking to the end of our road with my head down about all of those failures and somehow managed to miss the picture that it left on the floor. Now that I’m looking at it, I almost can’t fathom that they weren’t failures but flukes. This picture is my life with you and my motivation for my life this upcoming year.

Thank you so much for the time we have had together. I will cherish it forever because I have also really come to terms with the fact that time is a fragile element and we aren’t guaranteed any more than we think we ought to be.

You’ll forever be in my book of  blessins’ and lessons.

Yours Always,

Delany Breitbach

Haunted

And when he said goodbye, I thought that everything about him would change. I thought that the him I had found myself so wrapped up in would remain as so only in the stardust of my memories.

But I was wrong.

His eyes still pierce mine with a deadly hazel stare. His smell still entrances me every time I catch a hint of it. His voice still makes my heart jump every time it spills out of his smirking lips, giving me hope that maybe someday his words will once again be meant for my ears.

I won’t forget the things that only I knew, they will remain trapped in my mind. No matter how many times I set them free, they will always come in with the rain and flood the empty heart where flowers once bloomed. Maybe at one time I was special, I was different. But things change and people do— I guess — too. Not their mannerisms but their desires. And how painful it is to be unwanted. To know that someone who was once addicted to every single piece of me, now craves a new taste.

The things that once surrounded me with comfort are now haunting me in my sleep. I thought at least I would have some freedom when I shut my eyes, but every time I close mine, I see yours. Taunting me like emeralds behind a glass case, reminding me that I can look all that I want, but I can’t touch.

In the end, I just want him to be happy— even if I can’t be. I want him to find what will fill him with joy when the sun rises and hold him at night when it sets. Now I can’t stop thinking about how ironic it is that they tell you to find someone who makes you happy, but not to depend on others for happiness.

The Mathematician

He spoke in numbers, I spoke in words. Our thoughts were quite the same, however. We wandered the galaxy on a journey of thought. We weren’t interested in discovering any answers. We found pleasure in the idea that there wasn’t just one solution, but rather an infinite amount of possible anecdotes. We laid in a pool of our thoughts and emotions, spilling love from our bleeding hearts. And when our blood mixed we felt each other’s sorrows and joys.

His soul was genuine, honest. I want to say that the world needed more people like him, and it’s true. I think the world would be a much better place if there were as many kind hearted people like him, but I could never actually wish it. I’m too selfish. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be able to experience what it sounds like when he laughs at something completely ridiculous. Or feel the warm sensation of comfort and safety when he wraps his arms around you at night.

When we first started talking, I wanted to tell him that I loved him. Not because I did love him, but because I wanted to love him. He made me feel like a child, I was constantly learning from him.

When I slept beside him I dreamed of scientific and mathematical equations. But they weren’t actually dreams, it was more so just the equations running through my mind, subconsciously. Every time I woke up, I felt a little bit smarter.

This is what it’s like to have a conversation with him:

1. Logic

2. Imagination

3. The torture of never knowing what order they go in.

I would ask why I couldn’t live on a star, he would tell me that it is a scientific impossibility. Naturally, I would think of something clever to throw back.

– what if they launched my body into space, post mortem, and I landed on a star?

– what if my body could withstand the heat and gasses due to a molecular deformity I inherited as a child?

(Both implausible, but not impossible.)

 

But his logic didn’t dull the colors that ran through his mind.

I admired the fact that he always had a goal. Always wanted to achieve the next thing that would enhance his human experience, as well as the human experience for others. My favorite one of his goals is the exact reason why the world needs more of him: To make the world the best it can be before he’s gone.

Like I said, I’m selfish.

But I don’t think the logical solution is to extract his DNA and clone him, because who would even know if the clones would think the same way as him. If more people had the motivation and spirit that radiated through his bones, a substantial difference would be observable in the world.

And maybe there isn’t a logical solution at all, maybe people need to come down from their high horses and start doing things for the greater good.

That’s the most important thing that I have learned from him, to do things for the greater good. Because it’s okay to be selfish sometimes, you need to take care of yourself first… But it’s not okay to sit back and become upset about things when you did nothing to address them. You can be upset when you have done everything in your power to try and change a situation, and make the best of it. But it’s not okay to watch these things happen and blame everyone else for causing you to be upset when you could be doing something to improve it.

There are things far beyond the comprehension of my feeble mind, and maybe one of them was why God brought me straight to my person, especially when I wasn’t even looking for him.

Well, not my person. He isn’t mine. He isn’t anyone’s. Maybe that is why something that I was sure was in the grasp of my palm now slips elusively through my fingertips.

Perhaps we aren’t meant to cling to people, because we become too attached, because we become too dependent on them for our happiness. And he makes me happy, oh so happy. I don’t ever want that to end up ruining me.

But, as I said before, we are on an adventure. And I suppose you can’t call it an adventure if you don’t take any risks.