Love is the color of sunsets

I like the kind of evenings when there is just enough of a breeze that even though we are wearing jeans and t-shirts, I could order hot cocoa without looking out of place and we would take turns sipping out of one cup and I wouldn't have to be embarrassed about how my hands are always cold because I could discreetly warm them up while holding my hot drink. We would meander home at a leisurely pace, enjoying the perfection of simplicity, and you would chuckle to yourself and little crinkles would crease around your eyes, and I would know that you are about to make another one of your terrible jokes, and we would both start laughing and some hot cocoa might spill out of the cup but I would just kiss it off your fingers, or you off mine, and it would be sweet in both senses of the word. Moments like these would be their own little time capsule, lasting forever, with pink clouds above us and our footsteps in sync below.

If we were all made of glass

Sometimes I wish that we lived in a world where everything was made of glass. I could run across fields of emerald crystals which would reflect the sunlight in every direction and the shards of glass grass wouldn't even hurt because I would be glass too. I would be both strong and beautiful, now wouldn't that be something?

I could hold drops of dew like glass beads in my hands and gardens would glisten as if sprinkled with glitter. Rainbows would be made of the thinnest sheets of glass and when they shattered they would fall like confetti. I can imagine the breeze combing through my hair - I think it would sound like wind chimes laughing. And I think that if we kissed, our warm lips of liquid glass would melt together like honey. I hope that my skin will not be transparent because I don't think my heart could match the beauty of this world. But did you know that red glass gets its color from gold oxide? There may be hope for us yet. We would all have hearts of gold.

We're not broken just bent

Sometimes, when I am very still, I can feel the soft but steady beat of my heart so distinctly that if I close my eyes, my entire existence seems to become absorbed with each thud, thud, thud...until I am nothing but a heart, beating in pitch darkness.

Most people's thoughts arise from within the skull, but mine are born at the center of my rib cage. I can't help but allow myself to be controlled by feelings, seized by impulses, driven by intangible forces. It is as if my blood is the fuel for the fire that ignites in the core of my being and spreads throughout my body. Obeying is the only way to put it out.

Tonight, I am drinking wine, because it is the nectar of the gods, brought to Olympus by doves. Ambrosia is supposed to grant immortality, but I do not quite feel alive. I simply feel. I feel shame for the "51 deaths in Egypt" that are nothing but a headline to me. I feel dismay for the couples who throw their love away without even trying. I feel powerless for patients of terminal illnesses. I feel angry for the innocent man who lost his legs in the Boston marathon bombing. I feel regret for the children who were never born. But the worst feeling is knowing that I will never truly feel any of these things. I can put myself in someone else's shoes as much as I want, but in the end, it is impossible to feel what another human being feels. Empathy does not exist.

Sometimes I think that heartbreak is not so bad: it is the one feeling that is the opposite of feeling, as it destroys the very thing you feel with. But then I remember that without feelings I would be nothing, and since that is a terrifying thought, I urge you to treat these words with as little regard as there is wine left in the bottle beside me. How can I feel so much, but not feel anything at all?

I make up stories about people I pass on the streets

Two police officers walk into a Dunkin Donuts. Their uniforms fit just right, and have the effect of making their somewhat plain characteristics mysteriously appear more handsome. The girl behind the counter was hired just a few days ago. She has long, glossy hair the color of dark coffee beans, pulled up in a pony tail, with long bangs framing a pixie-like face.

It is cold outside and the first police officer is rubbing his chapped hands for warmth. He is looking for coffee on the menu, oblivious to the fact that the chilly weather will cause him to come to this particular Dunkin Donuts many more times in the upcoming weeks, and that he and the lovely girl behind the counter will begin to engage in flirtacious banter as he becomes a regular, and that within a matter of months they will have fallen deeply, deeply in love with each other.

The second police officer waits in the corner. He would sit down, but he doesn't want to look like he's slacking. The pair was supposed to be on duty, but he had convinced his partner to take a quick coffee break because he knew about the new girl who worked at Dunkin Donuts and was hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He will be bitter when she ends up with the wrong police man, and his jealousy will be harmless at first, but then he will decide that they were meant to be and that their love will annul the sin of stealing her away.

She resists being stolen because she has a clear conscience and knows the difference between right and wrong just as surely as she can distinguish white from black and day from night. At least this is what she tells herself. Her encounter with temptation had been awfully close, though, and as unknown feelings begin to betray her, she suddenly finds that what she has is no longer satisfying, and she grows more and more unhappy.

Years later, on one particularly cold winter evening, the two police officers will walk into the Dunkin Donuts once again. There will be another newly hired girl with pretty eyes and luscious hair serving their coffee from behind the counter, but neither of them will flirt with her. They will sip in silence, each regretting that they allowed the thief of their hearts to run away with no arrest.

A Love That Kills

he said, i fell in love
with the girl in the rusko
t-shirt with blue streaks
in her hair, like waves
of sin
that pulled me in

she said, he was the first
good boy
who wore a suit and tie
and looked me in the eye
as he talked about the economy
and his future
with me

he said, i smoked
for the first time
committed the crime
of love
because i needed an excuse
to spend time with her

but she said, i'd start
all over, throw away
one habit for every day
i spend with him

and they loved each other

and they ruined each other

until they couldn't remember
which came first.

I'm kind of just talking to myself

So the other day I decided to sit down and relax under one of the big, shady trees on the grassy slope that I pass everyday on my walk back from the lab to my dorm. I've always wanted to just sit outside, alone, and ponder to myself, converse with the wind, maybe write a little. It seemed like such a romantic experience, like a beautiful little glimpse of what living in heaven would be like. It wasn't.

The ants that suddenly appeared after I had so carefully selected the best spot to sit were so abundant that it seemed as if the ground around me had literally come alive. Those damn little ants were even bold enough to venture onto my jeans! A tiny bug crawled onto the keyboard of my laptop, and I'm pretty sure it disappeared somewhere between the keys "d" and "f." Winged creatures of which species I have never seen before and hope to never see again flew so close to my face that I made direct eye contact with them. And then, out of the blue, it started to rain! (Literally out of the blue - rain just started falling out of a cloudless sky.) Within a matter of minutes, I had gathered my things and run back home.

But such is life, right? You build up these dreams in your head and too often, reality disappoints you. I suppose the opposite occurs in the form of pleasant surprises with equal frequency, but that's another thing about life - we complain about the bad stuff and take the good for granted.