Wage war within yourself. The battle exists in you

My strength is defined / not by what I continue to carry / but by what I have allowed myself / to put down.

We didn’t kiss. Maybe it would all have been different if we had; if she’d planted her feet straight through the ground and stayed there long enough for me to taste the bubblegum on her mouth one last time. Maybe she would have remembered something important and stayed. Instead, she just smiled, her golden hair dry and shining while water soaked through my clothes and clung to my eyelashes. Her dress was clinging to her thighs, and I watched the yellow sunflowers mold themselves onto her legs. “See you soon,” she said, looking at me one last time before turning on her heels. It was more of a goodbye than I’d ever gotten before, and I was struck still with it. I knew that, beyond anything, I would never see her again, that she had packed up the last of us in her boxes and moved on, but I wanted to believe that she meant it. She slammed the van door shut behind her and they pulled away, the U-Haul rumbling behind them—a faithful dog full of memories. She didn’t look back until they got to the end of the street, where her entire body turned to look at me through the rain-streaked window of the trunk. She puffed out a breath, fogging up a small circle of the window, and pressed her mouth to it, then she was gone. A cloud of smoke trailed after her the way most things did, and then nothing but the wet sound of tires on the soaked street. I wondered if she ever wished the rain could touch her. If the rain was ever sad that it couldn’t.

With the smell of spices and cinnamon still dangling in the hallway, November knows before she even gets to the door. Without knocking she flings it open; October gasps in surprise as she springs up from bed. In her flailing, she knocks over the candles set on the nightstand, but it matters little; they were already burnt and their wicks blackened by flames. Still groggy, feeling as though she hadn’t enough time, October yawns and rubs her eyes. Clearing her throat, November points her chin towards the window. October sighs and splits a set of the blinds, peering through the slit. The leaves that had begun to fall when she first had begun her slumber are littered among the Earth. Now, though, they are withered with the month and curled into brown carcasses, mushy from being trodden on and soaked in rain. October shivers as November clears her throat once more and points to the door. She is already late for her exit, even though it always feels like she has just arrived. Without collecting a thing, October trudges past November, intentionally knocking shoulders, before she shuts the door behind her. November waits until she sees October’s silhouette disappear from the glow of the streetlights. It is night now, and it will stay so for a long while. In a gleeful sweeping gesture, November scoops up all of October’s trinkets and plops them into a wastebasket. She opens up the window as far it can go, frame rattling the entire way. With the brisk air that charges in, her breath blooms into a ghost to meet it. November steps to the edge of the bed, wrapping her shawl tight around her, cold gusts parading in and out, and then she sits. And there she will wait.

Then the men we try to love say we carry too much loss, wear too much black,  are too heavy to be around, much too sad to love. Then they leave, and we mourn them too.

somewhere I am loving you with all I have & not being punished for it.

I want to wake up to you kissing me, in the middle of the night.

I can be someone’s and still be my own.