Concept:

concept: you can’t get a lottery ticket until you’re 18 proper, but you’ve got your hands on two. we scratch them with the virgin mary that your mother keeps hanging on the rearview mirror of her car. we are both hunched over the ticket, and I can taste your hoping coppery on my tounge. you squeeze the hand that’s not clutching the virgin mary and I suddenly never want to know, just have you hold my hand like that forever. like anything is possible.  

concept: I can’t quite ever comb my hair the way my mother likes, but some days I try anyways. this is not one of those days. today, I join up with the pack of neighborhood boys to climb the abandoned water tower and yell out over my town until my voice is lost or someone calls the police. later that year, I learn sound can travel forever. I find myself imagining all the things I’ve ever screamed at the top of that water tower sprinting through space, and I decide that I am happy with what it would sound like.

concept: there is an empty bottle of wine on the table, and I am resting my head on the tablecloth, staring through it under the amber kitchen lights. the conversation over my head is the quiet kind that means it is too late for me to still be awake. I can hear my mother in the background, already washing dishes and pressing tinfoil leftovers into my grandmother’s hands. Before they leave, my grandfather leans down to me, smelling awfully like what used to be in the wine bottle, and tells me I’m his favorite. 

concept: we are watching some sort of movie in class that’s not supposed to be funny, and as the old projector wheezes out grainy pictures, you are passing me notes. I should not even be acknowledging you, much less writing back, especially because this teacher is already marking my papers harder than he really needs to. But for some reason, I am picking up my pen. 

concept: we are running through the empty halls of the town college, the slap of our beat-up sneakers on marble the most satisfying sound I have ever heard. we shouldn’t be here this late, shouldn’t be here at all, but I’ve always wanted to see this place and really, have you ever said no to me? my clothes flap behind me, too tired to keep up with my breakneck pace. we are out of breath by the time we see somebody walking towards us, and when we press ourselves into an alcove, I can feel the thudding of your heart. 

concept: the woman in the makeup store is suspicious of me, of my uncurled eyelashes and my unstraightened hair. but I have always loved to look at makeup, the way the rows of boxes of perfect product perch on neat shelves. the way everything is clean and everything is pretty. the girls who come into this store care, and I love to see people that care about something. 

concept: the sun has just set, but this park has not noticed yet, still basking in the memory of light, illuminating your face in all the strangest angles. dusk has always made me wane philosophical, and you have always taken me seriously, but tonight we just lie in the grass and wait for the stars to blink on. I roll over and lie my head on your shoulder, feeling everything and not needing to explain any of it. 

concept: we are sitting on the rug in front of your television, bathing suits poorly concealed under strip mall sundresses. there is a movie playing, but we are mostly talking over it, giggling at nothing but the smell of stale pretzels and chlorine. you get up to find a drink, and I follow, padding behind you until we are suddenly both toasting to freedom and dollar store orange soda. 

concept: I have never understood anything so well as I did when I learned that particles are in constant motion, vibrating with energy, even when still to the naked eye. I am all but trembling, shaking with the excitement of existence. I was not built to stand still. so as I cut my own bangs and build my own forts and howl into sapphire nights, I know that my atoms are singing along with me. 

concept: the sun prickles against my bare legs, the feeling of tall grass bowing against you while you run. I am walking nowhere, my aimless wandering just an excuse to find myself at the coffee shop down the road, the one that makes their donuts from scratch. it is a pomegranate summer, hundreds of sweet moments like these the seeds that I devour by the fistful. each feels so small, but leave me with a sweet taste in my mouth and a warmth in my stomach. 

concept: I always tell you not to feed the seagulls, but when you think my back is turned you are always throwing them scraps. I always tell you that they are pests, but you have always had a soft spot for scavengers. you tell me that they are just like me, all ruffled feathers and fight. I only laugh in response, but when your back is turned, and we are all packed up to head home, I toss the smallest one a french fry. 

concept: we are terrible at ordering from the drive through, talking over each other and tripping over our own words and forgetting something nearly every time. once we triumph, it is tradition to eat on the hood of your car, bare legs touching and feast shared between us. I think my mother would disapprove of the amount greasy food I am pulling out from this brown paper bag, but I think I must burn off the calories from how hard I’m smiling at you. 

concept: I am sleeping on the couch in the middle of the day, warm light filtering through the living room windows and getting lost in the tangles of my uncombed hair. I have nowhere to be, so I let the vague murmurings of the television talk me back into the palms of rest. we’re going to do big things tomorrow.

concept: I do not know the difference between a wildflower and a weed, only that both look good in flower crowns. my grandmother does not scold me when I add ragweed to the vase on her dining room table, merely rearranges her prized hydrangeas around them. if I get married, I tell her earnestly, I want a dandelion bouquet. and how fitting that even then I had allied myself with them, with the flowers that were called weeds but kept on being flowers anyways. 

concept: when you look up at a perfectly cloudless sky, you see the cells in your eye, white specks dotting an otherwise unblemished blue. there’s a poem there somewhere, about how staring into infinite expanse we can still only see ourselves. but I am too content for poetry today.

concept: my mouth is a geyser, erupts words like water. but metaphor can only take me so far, and geysers are not terrified that they don’t spew out enough, not acutely aware that there will become a day when their chemical reactions will no longer be powerful enough to spew their inner workings. the only time in my life I do not remember feeling compelled to add to the silence is when I am resting on your shoulder. 

concept: the early tendrils of the still cool morning encircle my ankles as my feet rest on dewy grass. our knees are resting on each other like a house of cards. mouths still bleary from sleep, we say nothing. we do not have to.