it’s nice to know the world is a broken place. pangea. once a solid form, once a whole, an entirety. once upon a time the world was a land instead of many. people traveled across it, instead of over oceans to its other pieces. but it bust. like a glass jar dropped— no like paper ripping— no like the sidewalk after years of growth beneath its surface, cold winters and hot summers expanding and contracting the concrete until it cracked. there was too much time for the world to take. the very earth splintered under the weight of itself, existing for so long, while everything grew upon it. years split the earth into pieces large and small. now we walk over bridges, we sit in planes over valleys, we ride on boats over seas.

indiscriminate time does the same to us. once solid forms, once sure, once whole, the years fall upon us like rain like sun like winter and summer and concrete. we bust. like broken pipes, like broken windows, like the strings of guitar pulled too taut too long until it snaps to two. like the spines of books bent back so many times the sewn parts wear to nothing, and our pages fall out. there is too much time for us to take. when we are born we are given a name and when we die we find we may have many names for the pieces remaining. different locations, destinations of our selves we have given for other people to travel to across our bridges, valleys, seas. we do not ask them to remember us for what we were on day one. but for the pleasant memories they received from the parts of us they came to dwell in.

we are broken places, like the earth. i think it’s nice to know it’s not just us.

i just wanted you to know i will be in california for a portion of my summer. entirely safe with a girlfriend on my arm because i do not want my parents to worry, but still, it’s california. hundreds of miles of hundreds of feet in the air on a plane, two with the transfer, and i’ll be on my way to california. it isn’t everyday that a girl gets on a plane to california, even if it isn’t alone, especially if it isn’t alone, don’t you think? if i were going on my own to california that would be an entirely different matter. but as it is i’ll be just fine i’ll look outside and see the sky in a new way over california. the bridges will be my bridges, the spine of the spirit of a new person who travels to far away places like california. maybe it won’t like me or fit me or want to have anything to do with me. maybe it will spit me out and i’ll never go back but it doesn’t matter, it birthed me— california. i just wanted you to know that i will be in california and if it does not spit me out, if it loves me, if i love it i may decide never to come back. i just thought you ought to know.

turn me over like an old cassette;
come see the other side of me.

love is so damn loud. it can’t just sit down and fold its hands in its lap and be quiet, let me pass. it has to walk two persons wide ahead of me on my way to class, sit beside me in the library sharing a computer, and laugh harmoniously in my ear from yards away. love just shut up. just leave me alone. just go be love somewhere else, and close the door behind you. love just use your inside voice at least. love just understand i’m so sad and you only make me sadder. love be kind.

what do you do when you miss someone so much it’s like your life has sprung a leak and your… you don’t even know what part of you, or if it is a part of you or what it is but something… in you… is just… pouring out? but you know you shouldn’t need them. that they’re not good for you. you know if you go back you’ll be full again, but of what? you don’t even know, again. everywhere you go, any way you turn, you’re this low or that high but neither is right. what do you do when you feel that?

i’m still finding my voice. sometimes i open my lips and my mother’s voice spills out saying things like, ‘have ya’ll put your seat belts on?’ driving people around in my car. sometimes i hear some gossip or trip on the sidewalk, my great-grand-mother shouts, ‘Lord have mercy’ from my tongue. when i’m flustered and flushed by the guy with my eye i sometimes try on phrases i’ve heard my friends say— then i blush all the harder ‘cause they don’t quite fit me (then revert to my own voice, ‘cause i want someone to love me).

what i know of my voice is its quietness, gentleness, almost-always-a-prayer-ness, and its want for right words. it’s picky and patient and some might say precious— i think that it mutters too much to itself. it works well with my eyes, as they dive to the ground, my voice follows in volume, lower, lower and lost. when i’m surprised or frightened, it peaks with my eyes widening; it stretches as my eyes grow slender when i’m suspicious or playful.

my voice will sing if it wishes; but not always if you do. it will boast for a moment, humbly decline all encores. i know my voice likes to rest; it likes to listen to others. it enjoys all the sounds it cannot echo back. i think my voice likes to wander, to creep away and ponder, inside of my mind it will go on for hours— in no particular direction.

with all unsaid and done, you know i have this strange feeling, that one day, when i’m not looking, my voice will find me.

you listen to such sad beautiful music
then wonder why you’re a sad beautiful girl.

honestly thursday, what are you doing? i am not ready for march. or morning. or sleep either. if i could rewind i would run through these same past hours watching them waste away. and come to the end and wonder, honestly thursday couldn’t you bring something better?

when i saw that he was with her… at first i was really mad. you know, that cartoon character steam out of the ears, speech bubble full of exclamation points and ampersands and random numbers turning into black scratchy scribble. i held the computer screen up close to my face and i stared at her and i said, ‘you…’ as if i had it in me to follow with the word on my mind. but then i sat back, and i closed the screen, and i saw myself in the mirror across from me. maybe, i thought, just maybe— she was nice. kind to him. maybe she smiled at him even when he couldn’t smile back, and encouraged him when he was putting himself down. maybe she didn’t make him pay her back for the coffee she’s bought him when they studied together and he’d left his wallet in the car. or she quietly cheered him on from the sidelines of his games. or she picked his pockets for his keys and drove him home when he’d had too much to drink. maybe she really cared about him.

and if that was the case, wouldn’t it just be the worst, for me to be mad. for me to call her… that. wouldn’t i just be pathetic to wish she’d never happened to him, when i’m all the way over here, and he’s all the way over there, and he needs someone just as much as i do. he just got someone sooner. that’s all.

no hard feelings.