Dear mom:

I don’t want to be brave anymore.

I can’t do it, don’t make me do it again. Please. Just… just look at me! I became everything
you ever wanted and more. I’ve done everything you ever wanted and more. I’ve been
brutal, relentless. Fiercer, sharper. When I had to give more, I gave everything. Now look at
me and tell me what is wrong with me. They told me I was going to get anything I wanted,
because I deserved it: success, power, freedom. Yes, yes. All mine. But gentle, soft things,
are they not for me anymore? It’s empty, here with me, things breaking in my hands.

And what I want… what I want doesn’t exist anymore.

Dear mom:

We need to talk about my dad.

He’s not ready. Stars above know I’m not, but he’s… he’s too of the present. He’s not like
you and I. The other day, he said you’re too beautiful, and suddenly began crying. He
meant too beautiful for this pain. I knew then, I wouldn’t be able to protect him, spare him,
only be there and remain strong enough for him while he watches it happen. I’m used to be
the stronger, and I will be the strongest. But you can’t live in the future, even if you do
know some of it.

How would you tell him, mom? You never were particularly gentle about these things. I’m
always wrong about you. And exhausted, and angry.

And I need you to tell me I’m beautiful, too.

PS: I put on your perfume today. I miss you.

I wake up earlier every day. I’d rather have tea than coffee. I’ll have grilled cheese for
dinner for the second night in a row. Sauvignon blanc straight from the bottle while bad
Mexican rom coms play on the screen like white noise. Perfect. Booked my flight to LA
last night. Washed the dishes. Bought a $100 white dress shirt online. Took out the trash.
Fed the cat. All dopey smiles, dressed in an oversized tee and socks. Poetic. Pathetic.
Nostalgia is bordering on loneliness. Longing with nothing to long for. My fingers are
greasy and warm, buttery. An impossibility. I wash my hands thoroughly. The house, my
mind, is quiet, full of ghosts. Just quiet, at last.

“For my mother”. My mother who is alive. My mother who is dying. And will die. Soon.
Sooner. She knows this, she feels this. And my mother has never been wrong a day in her
life.

Let me keep her whole in a memory. Let me just grieve her properly.

She died so long ago.

If I had my way, I’d scream into the bast emptiness of space, not to let anything out, but to
burn everything down.

but if god came down from the heavens

I would make him feel my rage
wrath his holy spirit, rip off his wings
slaughter his son
dig the spear further and watch it slurp until he bleeds out
until it’s fair

My mother was a dragon, so a dragon I became.

Come and face me, let me tear you apart while you tell me every reason why.

I wouldn’t dare to say it, that you’re asking too much from me. It isn’t entirely true, but I
got so little left to give. You’ve always been like this, asking more, better, and everything
from me when I barely understand what is it that you’re asking for. I need you to stop now,
except that I don’t really want to. We know what’ll happen if I do, what it already means.
But I’m begging you, don’t make me do it even if I can, and I will. Let me lean against the
wall and close my eyes. Breathe in very deeply. It’s getting harder just to breathe. I’m
sorry. I’m so sorry. Make it stop. Stop it. I can’t breathe. Please. I’ve never known how to
tell you how much you’re hurting me like this.

It can’t be all bad. Sometimes, yeah, it takes searching for the good moments, but they have
to be there. You taught me a lot about that, and I guess, just—my good moments in life are
with you. And I think everyone is owed happiness, and I guess that just always involved
you.

She belonged somewhere like New York—the city that never slept where life was
happening alongside you and not to you.

You know how it begins: walk down from 63rd to 59th Street, and round the corner in
Columbus Circle. Keep going through the Seventh, Sixth and straight to Fifth Avenue.
Take the subway and wait for the the 6 train (Uptown and The Bronx Local) that goes all
the way up Lexington Ave. Walk out of the station, head three streets and one avenue
down. Do you wanna know how much I love you today? Same shop, same hour. You order
an everything bagel with cream cheese. Lightly toasted, of course. A medium regular coffee
for cheapness sake. You flee the warm place in the next second. So, it really begins: six
streets and one avenue up. The air is crisp, a tell-tale of the bluest of skies. You know the
address by heart, even if you got lost that first time. It’s getting late. You won’t forget me,
will you? Stop. The ghosts are already closing in the longer you stare at that building, your
cheeks getting colder as you keep walking, and walking, and just walking. It makes you
happy, remember? Remember? How could I forget? You left then. You can’t ever go back
now.
But, right now, he is here. He's still here, she loves him dearly, dreadfully, with a defiance
that makes her heart sing. It is only fitting that she would love so deeply what she cannot
keep, and it is a selfless, gentle sort of passion that will haunt her, an echo of an empty
house she doesn't have the promise of ever getting back to, one she will always crave the
comforts of all the same. She looks at him and wishes to cook a meal and sit in the living
room with him, lock the door behind them as they lay down to go to sleep, ignore the storm
that rattles the bones of the house because, eventually, they will break. Just not yet. Please
not yet. 

October 2019. He was beautiful, and I was drunk, and jealous. The bitterness of an illegal
cigarette settling deeply on my tongue. Grumpy little thing. I told you I loved you. But he
didn’t. Not enough anyway. But he did. I knew anyway. I remember anyway.

He knew how strong she was, but if he could keep her safe, she didn’t need to be strong. It
was backwards thinking and he knew she’d hate to ever hear something like that, but he
couldn’t help it.

You're safe with me. There's no other way I can say it, please don't hate me for it.

The problem with her is you have to let her spin out a bit. Not too far, of course, but it’s
like her feelings are too big to speak or think, so she has to act – do something so they stop
bouncing around her chest.

I'll protect you. I love you, I'll love you through it, and I'll love you after, if you let it all
out. I'll catch you, so fall. It doesn’t matter, the world can end for a bit. It’s just you and me.
So fall.

She was so soft sometimes… but brutal all the same.

He was her Achilles’ heel, the crack in her armor, so she let the tear slide, laughing through
it.

While she was the first person to say to him: “tell me what you think ”, he was the first
person to whisper: “tell me how you feel”.

I don't want to go. I'm so maddeningly in love with you that I feel like you're in my lungs,
in my blood, all over the world. I love you everywhere, here and there, places I've never
been and lives I haven't even lived yet.

Oh, that's what it was all about. This. Avoiding this, right here, right now. This awful,
horrible reality they've all found themselves in where happiness crumbled in their palms.
They were rough with it. Why didn't they know how to be tender?

It had been such a fucked up series of circumstances that had brought them together, and
sometimes she wished it had been something normal. A café meeting where they’d both
reached for the same black coffee and apologized with dopey grins. Maybe in a parallel
universe they’d both hailed the same taxi. Perhaps she’d held the doors for him on the R
train in another life. Or maybe this was the only version that ended with them like this. 

They couldn't forget each other if they forgot everything else.

Remember when I told you all about the stars?

Perhaps it’s something like she’s the moon and he was a star, so, of course, they have to be
together. What's the point of one without the other? The sky would look so empty.

Maybe I want you somewhere out there in the galaxy with me.

I've named him. I've declared him mine because he's the moon to my stars.

You know, the moon is different from stars because it's something solid, something steady,
but stars are heat and energy, and they can burn themselves up. The moon's core is iron.
Oh, what was I going to do? I never stood a chance. I hardly had a choice, really. It's like
I've always had this love in me, made just for him, waiting for him—and he's here, and I've
always loved him. I loved him before my heart was even formed in the womb. I was always
going to love him.

No one loves me like you do. I’d count the stars if you asked me to—and you only need to
ask.

It was inevitable, me loving you. Even if we never met, even if I never knew you existed,
you would still be the person I loved and I would spend my whole life wondering where
you were. I don’t just love you because you’re here. I don’t just love you by accident. I love
you because I was always going to love you. The universe could have placed us on
different planets and it would still be you. I love you everywhere. Here and there, places
I've never been and lives I haven't even lived yet. You’re in this one; you will be in all the
ones after; in every one before, and I know it, I know it, because I recognize it. I don't have
to miss you anymore. We've been echoing through oxygen and existence for eternity. We'll
just keep finding each other over and over. We’re eternity, you and I.

I'd say what we are is tragically inevitable and woefully pointless. We are something, but
we can't be everything.

And all she can think about is the moon and the stars, how they can't steal them or keep
them, but it's worth it to love them anyway. 

Can't steal the moon, can't keep the stars, but we're fortunate enough to know them anyway.
Isn't that us?

You glinted in the dark like the moon lights the sky, and I found you.

What if we were astronauts? What if we were living in France? What if I was a worm?
What if we were in love?
But I want to stay here, in this forever that we've made.