i talked to the mountains and stars about you last night.

I had never seen so many stars in my entire life.

day 3.

a ghost story.

There is a very strange sensation that comes when you’re just about to leave home… almost like you’re already gone.

But I’ve been gone for a while now…

I think I’ve been forcing myself into things that aren’t for me back there. I forced myself into relationships that were painful and tore me apart, I forced myself to work jobs that I hated… I pretended to like getting too drunk at bars and kissing strangers. In every part of my life, I was uncomfortable, I was unhappy, and I was grieving. I grew weary from reminders of painful memories on every street corner, every beach… my favorite places felt ruined, and I didn’t know how to rid myself of the ghosts, still stuck in time, repeating their beautiful days that now bring me grief.

The mechanic told me my car might not make it across the country, but I didn’t listen. I thought whatever happened, if I broke down in the desert or made it to a new city, it would be a sign for me either way. Maybe sometimes I have too much faith in the universe and signs and coincidences, because to a certain extent, you are responsible for making things happen. You have to get up and put your shoes on every day, walk out the door and decide who you are going to be. But at the same time, I’d like to think that some cosmic force or God or whatever you want to call it, looks out for you, and things align just as they were meant to. I had that same foolish, cosmic faith in my black sedan, Janice. She would carry me away from here, somewhere I would belong.

Last night I made it to my first destination: The Great Salt Lake Desert. It was one of the most horrifying landscapes I’d ever seen in my life. Nothing grows, and the ground itself is dehydrated because it’s covered in a flat, thick crusted layer of white salt. I’d seen pictures online but to witness it in person is something else. The mountains turned a lilac purple and the scalding sun was cherry red. I slept in the desert last night. I couldn’t be happier, but I couldn’t help but imagine you were here with me to experience this too. Shouldn’t there be two of us? But there isn’t… I am alone.

I’ve found it’s terrifyingly simple it is to uproot your life and start over.

Some things you think won’t ever change are gone just as quickly as they came.

I’ve found out that loving people really is just the art of letting go.

And once I realized I had forgotten the sound of my own voice, I had to go.

I had to.

kaleidoscope

it was a cathedral stained glass

kaleidoscope version of the truth

it was the devil in me / the angel in you

and perhaps

a piece of you wanted the ground to break beneath you a little bit

and all i wanted was for the earth to stay solid underneath me for once

and now it’s all ruins

and our ghosts still haunt sacred ground

past versions of our past selves still living in those mere

seconds

moments

hours

time is collapsing

waves were crashing

the train was screaming

and i was crying while the

door was closing

while i tried prying it open, white knuckled

i stared at the christmas lights on my bedroom floor that made me feel somewhat alive, like I was when I was young.

tell me, what do i do with all this love i have for you? unspent, it spoils me, rotting from the inside out, it turns into grief.

and all i want to do was to hold you close / closer / closer

I closed myself off

you closed yourself off

and so next time, i will hold love loosely, with open hands like when i used to worship in

that cathedral stained glass kaleidoscope version of the truth

i praised you

adored you

worshipped you

because in the end, when the world caves in, and you and i disappear in the explosion

all we have is what we gave away.

.

I saw her

The same waitress who

I used to work with

And she's been here all this time

It's been years...

"Would you like some coffee?" She asks me.

She doesn't even recognize me.

I nod, because I would like some coffee.

She pours the muddy water and stares into my white diner mug, not meeting my sad eyes staring at her wrinkled face.

My eyes wander to the large wooden clock

hanging above the shiny chrome milkshake station

that clock

I used to sit in this very same teal and torn booth and stare at it

counting down the minutes until the sun rose when I could clock out

and start my morning with rotten sleep, smelling like pancakes and cigarettes.

I’d listen to the fucking screaming train pass by, just yards away.

that fucking train that they built in the middle of this

fucking town

I remember wishing that train would scream louder and

louder and

louder

until I could feel the age-old foundations of this dying diner start to give way and crumble on top of me, burying me forever in the town that loves to chew me up and spit me out.

“Just a couple more weeks…” I told myself, back in 2018. And then I’d have saved enough in tips to travel through Central America. I kept the coins in a jar by my bed, and as I watched it fill up, I felt more and more like a prisoner nearing their day of freedom. I’ve filled many a coin jar, always trying to escape this place, to find purpose elsewhere. I sensed the hatred I felt for this town was reciprocated towards me, that this place didn’t really want me either. I never wanted to come back… I never do. Things just happen, and somehow I always find myself stuck here again.

Once more, this ghost-like feeling of un-belonging is becoming more and more unbearable each day. Tell me, where do I go from here?