4:41pm on april 11th, 2024

playing tetris with my time and jenga with your feelings. i flip through the good book for answers but am met only with a cheshire cat smile. like alice in her wonderland, i am very small and confused but mostly having a good time. can a life be packed up into boxes, neatly sealed, cleanly labeled? or does it gather like dust in all the corners of this room that have never been touched? how many shopping and to-do lists will it take to get my head on straight? how many missed journal entries and forgotten birthday cards before i call it quits? do you still think i'm pretty?

11:51pm on march 9th, 2024

three hundred miles from los angeles and i'm staring out the window at the almond blossom trees thinking about the way she kisses my cheeks and the tip of my nose and holds me like she will never let me go. a love bigger than the california sky every long road i've ever driven was just to get to her side. two hundred miles from los angeles songs weave new meanings through stale van air i am the product of every person i have ever known and every single place i have ever called home my friends are asleep, open mouthed and at peace i will keep them this way for as long as they will let me. one hundred miles from los angeles our weary feet sinking through cool grass cartwheeling our way through dog days of winter where we let ourselves to laugh until we fell to our knees while the mountains stared and shook their snowcapped peaks. and we will arrive in los angeles grass and tear stained rays of sun shining our light into threadbare motel rooms off the 405 and we will be golden.

2:52pm on january 23rd, 2024

burning ears and watery eyes words that pour onto the page like water from a cistern smooth as molasses, and twice as sweet i'll memorize every line so that i can whisper them to you on demand, on call, as you wish. pillow talk for the ages my favorite distraction my favorite way to spend the precious resource that we call time file my nails and soften clenched jaw leave fight or flight mode once and for all studying every mannerism and quirk and how best to make you laugh what makes you tick talk until the moon gets caught in your hair no stopping until the sunrise kisses your cheek if you let me, i'll kiss the other.

2:10pm on january 23rd, 2024

we are complimentary colors, a sunset and a sunrise meeting in the middle to create a single point of warmth on concrete sidewalks. i want everyone in this entire city to know the way i feel, shouted from the rooftops or from the top of a winter-bare cemetery oak tree. i will tell the rats and the bats and the other urban dwellers to tell their friends and they will tell their friends and this will continue all the way to your coast where they can tell you too. warm desert rain and subzero sunshine. singing different verses of the same song. laughter that's on key but off the beat. sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

10:54pm on january 16th, 2024

i never knew the way the word sweetness would move me. i never knew that anyone could look at me with the tender reverence that creatures much wiser than me have written sonnets about. i want to put you in a song that we could sing flying down the california one or lake shore drive or anywhere in between. i want to cover your room in rose petals the way you have covered my life in them. i want to feel your hand in mine beneath all seven wonders of the world while sharing secret smiles because we know we are holding the eighth.

3:22pm on january 11th, 2024

you are orange hearts and the culminations of all my “almosts” of the last four years. i pray to god that i have learned something. i was born at exactly the right time in exactly the right place and i use it to travel two thousand miles in the blink of your (blue? green? gray?) eyes. i hope we make each other laugh. i hope we sing in front of each other with reckless off key abandon. i hope this is everything either of us ever dreamed of.

7:40pm on january 6th, 2024

fat wet flakes falls on my pajama pants while i think about the texts i have yet to respond to. everyone on this bus is wet and cold and careening happily into their saturday nights. you are neon reflected on concrete. you are the crowds spilling out the door of the worst bar in town. i am just the shots i took in front of my heater in the hopes that i could be a person tonight. i hate every word i ever said but i can’t stop sending you letters dabbed in perfume. i would sign them in blood if you’d let me.

7:05pm on january 3rd, 2024

one way or another i am writing about love, i always am. i breathe love like cigarette smoke on the el train, there and lingering whether i like the smell or not. i hope the winter is as gentle with you as you are with me. i hope you look up into the starless sky and wonder if mine is the same. i hope you are less scared than i am. we are two trees on opposite sides of the plains, stretching out roots, hunting for common ground. or i'm a raincloud, drifting towards you, wanting to help the flowers grow tall. take your parade inside. i'm on my way.

11:25pm on january 1st, 2024

it's easier to say goodbye to something beautiful when the possibilities in front of you are a kaleidoscope of magic. we toast and kiss and laugh and cry because at the end of the day it's a miracle to share a zip code much less this shimmering moment in time. love is my favorite resolution. i sing to the roses and wonder what you really mean by them. i am the same anxious mess as i was last year but at least i can laugh. i want to be deserving of your glittery gifts and presence and a seat at the barstool beside you. i want to know you better than i know myself which is a low bar but i'm still playing limbo. i want to see you smile in the california sun or watch chicago snow melt on your cheek. i want to know why me.

4:16pm on december 28th, 2023

the day where i don't see you loving me as a red flag is the day i achieve inner peace. the road ahead is lined with reflective tape, like that road in iceland, but i have such a hard time keeping my car between the lines. grind my teeth and pick at my skin and wonder if you'll find these things endearing or infuriating. i have never been anything more or less than what i am and at least i am aware of it now. i want to know what your voice sounds like but i can't bring myself to pick up the phone. love is so much cleaner in black and white type, arial font, double spaced. one of these days i am going to make a therapist very wealthy. i hope they get themself a little treat while telling their best friend whatever crazy thing i said that week.

5:31pm on december 20th, 2023

i'm in a staring contest with the whole city. she is winning. blink twice if you need help. everything i do is a cry for help but everyone i know is screaming too loudly to hear each other. i am one bad sound away from a meltdown. everything will be ok once i stand up but if i fall asleep for good then everything will probably be ok too. i don't want to die anymore but i will never stop wondering if it will be as warm as this electric blanket, or a mug of apple cider on a cold day, or one more log on a summertime bonfire. i wish i had a single answer. i wish i wasn't so cold.

7:03pm on december 17th, 2023

i need a backspace key in real life. i need to be able to craft myself in black and white with exactly the right words, facial expression, body language angled just so. control z. try again. get it right this time. or they'll leave you alone. be useful. be bright. make it all make sense. know when to walk away. know when to stay. try harder. do better. be better. be different. be yourself. it's not enough. highlight and delete. try again.

10:41pm on december 16th, 2023

i try to tune into the frequency of my own head but all i hear is static. i can twist the dial and pick out individual words and sounds but stringing together sentences is asking too much of this faulty radio. what would life be like if you knew me? what would it be like if i wanted to know myself as well as i know you? i am made up of every song i have ever heard, every note slipped between the pages of old schoolbooks. i am an ill-timed laugh, a frown when there should be a smile, the words that you didn't process but you nodded along anyway. i am too tired to feel any of this.

7:41pm on december 15th, 2023

all these words spin around in my head like a hurricane but the right ones never make land. on paper everything is picture perfect, a well-labeled diagram, a manifesto, but in reality my head won't stop aching and my bones won't stop shaking. i want to make sense of the sounds. i want you to want to help me get there. if i stay on my own tonight i'll die but if i'm pushed into a crowded room i'll scream until they push me back out. i never wanted this anyway. but i'm here so i'll take everything i can reach and reach for what i can't. nothing is ever enough. everything is too much.

11:10 on december 7th, 2023

you're right, the only thing i have to be sorry for is myself. my head is in the clouds but they're thick and cold and keep me from seeing the forest for the trees on the ground. the idea of love loves me more than you ever could. the sun warms and blinds and if it would stay still in the sky i would never leave this bed again. monsters in the closet and demons in my head and it's no surprise i'm always in fight or flight mode. the fawns are frozen and there's no turning back. press repeat on this weary heart. we'll find our way out of here soon.

8:55pm on december 4th, 2023

you are a lighter and my fingers are shaking too much to create a spark. i don't know where you are but i don't know where i am either. days are running past me and i can only watch from the side of the road. how can a heart hurt this bad while feeling nothing at all? how can getting everything i ever wanted feel so empty in the moments in between the fireworks? not even pen to paper can make the stars align. evenings spent painting the town red with sound but there are still so many dishes in my sink at home. i answer "yes, and," to every question but it's never enough. it is the best it's ever been.

12:38am on november 26th, 2023

the crush of the crowd like the ebb and flow of waves. the bass made its home in my chest at a tender age. if i could bottle stage fog and use it as a perfume or scented candle or tobacco i would. your smile is brighter than the fresnel spotlights, and keeps me twice as warm. i don't know the songs but i love them like i love flowers and stars and all the things i know but cannot name. the car is right where we left it and it's only three right turns til home. i don't know what to do in the silence of the cold night. inside the sound we are safe.