something beautiful.

This is me, line dancing underground, waiting for the train to come. On good days, it’s waiting for me patiently. No push, no rush, no menacing three-ring bell that’s always slightly off-key on the third chime. On bad days, I watch it pull away from me. Most mornings are good days. Afternoons, on the other hand…

Sometimes the commute makes me crazy. I look for things, glimpses of things, in the darkness to stay sane. Sometimes there’s light signals. Green for move along, red for help, blue for life is better in an alternate universe. Sometimes there’s stairs leading to Narnia. I blink and there’s brightness.

There’s a man sitting on a bench on the platform, nervously holding newspaper but not reading it. He doesn’t get up when the train arrives. He just glances down the platform and back at his newspaper, then down the platform again, hoping his lover will come. Somehow it reminds me of a “meeting on top of the Empire State Building” story, but less romantic. Before I can see how the story pans out, I blink and there’s darkness again.

You came into work today wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, laughing a little at how you might be broken. You came over with a newspaper and I asked you what’s wrong. You said it’s a sad story, so I told you my own story to distract you while you did the crossword.

“That boy over there was late, but I had to wait for him because the door was locked and he had the key. He laughs at the end of every sentence and it’s like dark chocolate melting. He looks like someone I used to know, except that his teeth are perfectly aligned, and it aches a little inside to look at him. But when he walks away in his pylon-coloured t-shirt, I think we could be best friends.”

You said thanks for the story and left the newspaper on my desk, smiling one minute and frowning the next as you walked away. The crossword was blank except for the first few squares that spelled out she never came. Call me heartless, but (somehow) I couldn’t feel any sympathy for you. I wanted to tell you that you should never have waited for her, but hindsight is always 20/20, I guess.

Dear Stan,

You are at once real and imaginary to me. I write to you with all the honesty and fear I have uninhibited. And since you somehow exist in a fragile dimension that is not quite real and not quite imaginary, I am being as much honest with myself as I am being honest with you. So here it is.

I’m always afraid that the people I love are going to die. It’s not death that I’m afraid of. I think it’s not so bad (dying), even peaceful. What I have is a selfish fear. I’m afraid of being alone, of losing everyone I love. I don’t like talking about it; I don’t want to put the thought out to the universe, you know? But it’s coming for me. It’s getting stronger, this innate fear, one day it will consume me. Here’s how it goes.

I’m always the first to leave the house in the morning, but I picture myself sitting on the steps as they walk out the door. I imagine myself waving good bye to them as they pull down the driveway. And then I always go into myself, remembering the last conversation I had with them. I have to play it over, every detail, the way they smiled and the way I smiled back, just in case, just in case, just in case they drive down the street, turn onto the main road, and get rolled under a truck. I play it over and over until the fear subsides just for a moment.

Risks don’t kill people, Stan, trucks do. You want a sign to tell you what to do but I think you already know. Let it consume you.

With all my love and fear and honesty,

Lola

I told you that so you would stay, I asked you to stay. I’ve never been the one to say it, because I’m afraid of drawing the short end of the straw. I’m afraid of losing. Really, I’m a selfish person, but love makes you unselfish (or something like that; it’s all an overgrown and uncharted land to me).

We talked until the house started to snore and you said you had a bus to catch. I asked you, again, to stay and you said only a little bit longer. I said I know you love her and I can’t promise you anything. I can’t promise I’ll love you forever. I can’t promise you’ll ever love me, either. But I love you now and if that’s enough for you, then stay.

I woke up in the middle of the night with an aching back from falling asleep while sitting against the wall. You sat awake beside me, staring out a pitch-black window. It was as if we hadn’t moved from our conversation. The only source of light was my clock-radio that changed from something-:59 to something-:00, like it always does in movies. The glow of the :00 fell on your face and I swore I saw the sunrise in your eyes.

I said I thought you had a bus to catch. You said I can stay until the lilies bloom. I didn’t know what that meant but you kissed me on the forehead like a child kisses a doll, and that was enough for me.

In the morning, I woke up and you were gone. I was inside myself and I could feel the rush of all the heartbreaks I had never felt before. But I was outside too, watching myself, and it didn’t feel so sad from there. It was almost cathartic, because I had finally loved you. And you had finally left.

I looked out the window and the lilies said good morning.

But if I ever woke up from this dream, I would be trapped inside myself. I would be stuck with the short end of the straw. Maybe that’s why I won’t ever love you.

I love elephants and hazelnut-flavoured drinks and the subtle bitterness of grapefruit. I love music and the sound of B minor played on a guitar. I love drawing with marker over a dried watercolour canvas. I love the sound of rain falling on nothing but the ground. At six in the morning it’s quiet enough to hear the roar of each raindrop hitting the pavement, like shadows running from daylight. If you close your eyes and stand next to an open window, you can hear the ocean calling.

I love the overwhelming silence of airport elevators.

But here’s the secret truth I never told you. I don’t know how to love you. I wouldn’t sacrifice the world for you. I wouldn’t stop singing-drawing-writing, eating-sleeping-breathing for you. I wouldn’t give up the rain for you.

You might say I’m descending into a bottomless pit of loneliness (but I’d say you’re just being overdramatic). Tomorrow I might confuse thirty minutes for an hour and even if I stare at a $13 bill for five minutes, I won’t be able to figure out that a three dollar tip is too much. But at least I won’t see sadness. You can try to save me if you’re crazy, but I’ll keep marching to the beat of my own drum and I’ll follow wherever this love takes me.

And I’m (not) sorry.

Those days when my thoughts are tangled up in loops and knots, when my mind is sluggish and my emotions are seeping out in every direction, escaping me - those days, I can’t find the words to write or say to you. I used to have a red thread tied around my finger, one strand of thought that I could tug on, and suddenly the fog would lift. All my thoughts would be clear. But I lost that thread too, in the tangle of loops and knots.

I’m living in a perpetual state of eat-sleep-study, surviving off green tea with jasmine and passionfruit; two tea bags means I can refill it twice before the taste runs out. At 2 a.m. my brain shuts down and all the conversations come rushing back in. I only catch whispers, but somehow I can use them to construct entire discussions, played out in the dim glow of the street lamps through my window.

We used to talk about all the different places we could go. Now I’m talking to a shadow of you in the non-light, telling you all the different ways I could’ve broke your heart. It’s been so long, I can’t remember how we ever met. We found love once and lost it twice, I still can’t wrap my head around that. Yesterday we were just kids and I could still remember the first time I saw you. If I could go back 10 years I would tell myself to write down the first thing you ever said to me. I hope it was something like “What’s your favourite ice cream?” Something innocent and sweet, and not weighed down by implications.

I keep waiting for some great cosmic explosion to land us in the same place at the same time. If that ever happened, I would tell you this: the other end of that red thread is connected to you.

Most days I don’t really want anything. At dusk the sky is speckled with golden dust and shadows draw lines on the sidewalks. Whenever I drive passed apartment buildings I find myself wondering about the stories that the curtains hide. Arrays of incandescent lightbulbs whisper tales of strange happiness and fluorescent lamps breathe terror. But the darkness is a mystery to me.

A friend told me that people throw rocks at things that shine. Or was that a celebrity. I told him that grapefruits splatter more than apples do, but we all spill a bit of our hearts onto the cement on cold winter mornings. Mashed potatoes with gravy might warm all of us up, though. That’s what I really want right now.

Every morning you turn around exactly once to give me a half-smile and say hi, whisper it so only I can hear. I’m at the back of the room and you’re at the front but your voice escapes everyone but me. All I want is to see that half-smile every day. But most days I don’t really want anything.