Anna, 25

It was the first day of August, a Monday night much like any other but also like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Technically you said ’I love you’ first, but I had been wanting to say it for what felt like a hundred years. We were just kids, but I guess it’s something about saying ’I love you’ for the very first time to another person who you’ve recently just met but who you feel like you’ve known your entire life. And I did love you on that day. I remember. Because I still love you, I think more and more with each passing day. — We are getting married on a Monday, in August, in your hometown, after all these years. I guess that’s something. And, one thing I want you to know is — I’ve known we would since the day we first met.

You lost her and it wasn't because she was hard to hold, or love, or touch but because she was made of your abscence, of all the things you ignored and all the beautiful poetry you read but failed to understand.

Have we met here before? I think I have missed you always – everything you’ve given me and every little bit of you in all the stray pieces of my past. Are you the one to guide them all back home? Were you always? I know I am not sure of anything but you I will never need to be.

Somehow, it feels like you grew up down the street with the way you knew just how to make sense of all the things I could be right from the start. So I feel as if maybe I was searching for you always, but I can’t quite understand how you found all of me so fast. All I know is that we became new that day, mountains and oceans and lifetimes apart – that you planted a longing in me; that you made a home out of everywhere I have been. And while we came together, somehow nothing fell apart.

I've been here so very long, every word is calculated -- never questioned or debated All these practiced poses; I could wreck it if i had to But I'm the wreck so what would that do? My masterpiece will fall apart It was over before the start If I burn out and slip away (But this is just a part I portray) (And this is just a part I portray) You're beautiful, can I hide in you awhile?

We had to put down our cat yesterday. She was old and it was her time to go but I keep crying when I see her empty spot on my bed or when I realise that she’ll never beg for her favorite food anymore. I have never been good with change. I accidentally mentioned to my sister that we decided to have her cremated because even dust takes flight and she deserves to fly free- before I had a chance to think about my words, I realised that my sister had to cremate her own newborn son just last month .