She stands at the edge— 

slick with sweat thick as saliva—

The abyss below her licking its lips,

The roar of traffic not unlike some great

Stomach growling with a dark hunger.

It’s a far way to jump, but it is natural, 

Like a drop of wine sliding down a man’s gullet.

Her feet rest on the bridge’s edge,

Like a crumb about to fall through teeth.

Her heart grumbles like her stomach 

does without breakfast. Bile rises in her throat, 

like she will vomit the gourmet meal of 

cheese and crackers from yesterday.

When she leaps off the edge,

It tastes like ice cream, sweet and cool,

And when she drops into the stomach acid 

Of the river’s body, everything stops.

He stops, his voice too calm, too nonchalant.

I demand why, but his answers don’t make any sense—

calmer than the night sky, colder than the stars.

The crowd doesn’t seem to hear me,

And I don’t even see them anymore.

I accuse him, he doesn’t even try to deny it—

he even dares to call me arrogant for 

telling him his path isn’t possible.

I can hear his voice in my head:

Saying what I try to say now, only better, always better.

He asks me a question, one that reduces me—

And I grit my teeth against the ache in my chest.

A wordless threat comes from me, and he tells me

I can do it if I want, that at least there’d be a point to that,

As if there was a point to any of it other than to be my—

He vanishes, I clench my fist. Dark leaves light,

The tables turned, the roles reversed, 

Weak and strong, the whole world wrong.

Her shoes shine ruby red against the white door frame,

covering silver toes that climb into chainlink legs,

the mesh dress revealing every bit of darkness

behind her, every inch of not-flesh-flesh half-obscured.

As she holds the phone in her hand, she scoffs,

lips curled in a smile at the latest text message on screen.

Her hair has crawled out of the sixties,

framing a face that feels like it belongs behind 

a thick layer of fog, or a sleek scarf,

just those gray eyes peering out

as she asks you what you’re doing at her house,

even though the open door is clearly an invitation.

You look at her, determined not to flinch under

that piercing, steel-sharp gaze. You lift your hand

in a small wave, smile on your lipless face

as you say that same damn, lame line:

“I just wanted to see you again.”

I can’t stand waiting.

I sent in my applications early

Just so I didn’t have to wait as long.

I get places early, just so I don’t have to wait

In lines for tickets or concessions,

And yet I crave things to start early

Just so I don’t have to wait.

“You’re so patient, waiting for that book,”

My librarian tells me, handing me the back-ordered copy.

She doesn’t know the way I check Powerschool

Five times a day, seven on weekends,

Maybe fifty on exam days,

My mind only focused on the seconds following the timestamp

I turned my assignment in at.

“You’re so patient with that kid. You should be a teacher,”

My teacher remarks, a proud smile on her face.

I don’t tell her how many times I wanted to snatch up the pencil

Right out of his hand, scribble down the right answers,

Just so the task is done.

I can’t stand this side of myself.

It’s wrong, it’s flawed, it’s bad,

And I don’t want to be bad,

But I can’t deny the truth of it,

That I am not good,

And I am certainly not patient.

I stare up at the ceiling, the streetlight shining through my window,

imagining the somber scene over and over and over again,

The main character of my imaginary world, the one I’ve

written about since I knew how to make a Google Doc

nearly ten years ago now, an evolution of childhood

given form in my moments before sleep takes me away.

It plays out in cinematic detail,

the soundtrack mirroring my Spotify

with a single song looped until I wake.

She waits for someone to save her,

to give her permission to rest,

something she will always deny herself.

We are not the same. 

She is strong and tall,

while I’m soft and short.

But we both want to be

a hero in someone else’s story,

though we know that’s not how life works.

I stare up at the ceiling, the streetlight shining through my window,

imagining the somber scene over and over and over again.

She looks up at a gray sky, voices shouting 

though she cannot hear them

as her vision begins to blur

and she falls into unconsciousness.

It is at that moment that I too fall asleep.

Tomorrow, I will wake before sunrise,

I will go about my day,

type across my screen her story,

and at night, in my bed,

the cycle will begin again.

I stand in your kitchen,

watching you hand my sibling a Twizzler.

I wait patiently for your garage door to open.

You ask me if I still don’t like Twizzlers.

I struggle not to gape,

for my mouth not to become a gaping hole

from which obscenities and tears crawl out

like bugs climbing up the side of your gutter.

In my eighteen years of being

Not once have I ever liked that chewing rope

of false sweetness that you call a Twizzler.

Why do you not know this simple fact 

about me when friends I’ve known for less

then a year know this and can remember it?

My ears burn like the wildfires in the North, 

my eyes stinging from the smoke.

The typical response drips out

from an otherwise dry mouth.

I don’t look you in the eye,

barely say goodbye this time.

It is such a stupid thing to be upset about,

but I have earned the right to be angry

after so many years of bottling it up,

of telling myself that I didn’t feel it.

Or maybe that’s what I tell myself

to justify my rotten heart,

one you’ve buried and unearthed

a thousand times over.

I don’t know. I don’t

know anything at all about love,

for I’ve learned so much of it from you.

You: a man with a hole in his chest,

with no dirt to ever fill it.