marchingclock

On Halloween night he texts you that he's out of work if you still wanted to see him. In all honesty you don't know if you're prepared to. You say yes regardless. He picks you up in his mother's car. You small talk through the silence as he drives you to a house you've never been in before. Inside are people and drugs and you can't tell if you're shivering from nerves or from the chill in the air. But he gives you his jacket, and you smoke your anxieties away through the pipe he holds to your lips. Your Halloween costume tonight is a mask of false happiness. It looks so real, even you can't tell it's a lie. - You wake up sweating in a bed

You're empty. Your bones are home to stale air and emptiness, chipped at the edges, caving in. The butterflies in your stomach have migrated away, the excited beat of your heart now a dull worthless thud against the cage of your ribs. It's longing for more; you have nothing to give. Your eyes are pale, no longer blue, pupils reflecting the cobwebbed ceilings and bare white walls around you. With every blink you hope something will happen, something new, something meaningful. With every blink you're as disappointed as you guess the world is with you.

You wonder if he ever thinks of you. When he hears your name, he must, or has he normalized it? When he hears those songs on those albums by those bands that you talked about until five in the morning, or does he skip over them when they play? Surely he must remember you when he sees a set of crooked teeth or reads a book for English class or hears about New York, unless he's trained himself not to. You'll think of him when you hear his name. When you hear those songs. When you hear a piano playing F Sonatina or the roar of a baseball game playing on TV. You've tried to forget about him and his shy smile, you have, you have, but somehow he a

I am forgetful. Sometimes I forget my keys, and sometimes I forget my phone. Sometimes I become so wrapped up in the computer or a show that I forget about lunch until three in the afternoon. I can write reminders on the back of my hand in ink, and I can stick infinite Post-It notes to walls and notebooks and the bathroom mirror, but to no avail. A moment will pass and whatever thought I'd had will have left. I am forgetful. But I remember what's important. I may forget my keys, but I'll never forget your smile when you locked the door to your bedroom behind us that first day. I may forget my phone, but I'll always have your num

What I've learned over the years is that the Gold Standard is just that: standard. Not special. Not Outstanding. I am golden. I have gold in my hair and gold in my eyes and gold coursing through my veins alongside the blood that keeps me alive, but it's dull. What's lusted after now is the Long-Dark-Hair Standard. The Eyes-So-Black-You-Can-See-Stars Standard. The Perfect-Body-That-Holds-The-Universe Standard. When compared to all of this, gold doesn't seem so great. Gold is just a speck, lost in the vast infinity of all those better. When it comes down to it, the Gold Standard is not enough.

I had never seen the rain. Not like this, anyway. Not on the day we met, huddled under a tree waiting for the bus, when we were cold and drenched but still smiling. Not on the night everything fell apart in your living room, when our yelling drowned out the thunder in the sky. This time it's different. It's the same thick veil of rain I've seen so many times in movies, but this time, it feels like a sign. The torrential downpour is reminiscent of so many nights I spent with you, and it brings a sinking feeling to my stomach. When my phone buzzed on my bedside table last night, illuminating the darkness of the walls with your name on the scr

it's the color of blood when it runs through your veins. it's the color of bruises when they burst beneath your skin. it's the color of my eyes when they look at you from across the room. it's the color of the tablecloth your mother served dinner on and the color of your bed sheets as we fell down onto them when no one was home. it's the color of your t-shirt, abandoned across the room with the rest of our clothes. it's the color of the sky outside, dark and littered with stars. it's the color of the notebook i write details of you down in. it's the color of the ink in the pen you gave me in class the first time we spoke. it's one half of

Your first date was with friends, his and yours, because you were young and you were scared and you didn't want to be alone. There were six of you altogether. You saw a movie and went for a walk and smoked in the woods like you told yourself you wouldn't, but everything was okay. You called home and made up some excuse, you're staying at her house, Mom, you swear, and as the moon watched over you in your diner booth by the window, you never wanted to go back home. Your friends occupied the counter, sharing food and chatting with a waitress, and you and your date sat in the back, drinking coffee with frequent glances to the red and yellow clo

July 4 Holidays are not something to celebrate when you don't have a family to be with. But when you invited me over to watch the fireworks from your bedroom window, I threw that law away with my inhibitions and grabbed my keys. You live by a park, full of happy families who abandoned their apple pies and white picket fences for the night to watch the colors in the sky. As I walked past all the smiling faces of kids wearing red and blue, I thought how their happiness celebrating in the sun could never compare to mine, holding you in the heat of your apartment. When I came upstairs, you smiled your crooked smile and offered me a drink. I to

When you have a problem, you find a solution. That's common sense; when you're trapped in a cell, you find a way out. Anything will do, as long as it works. You may scrape your knees or bruise your elbows, but as long as you get out, you tell yourself it's okay. So when everything is wrong and the weight of the world is holding you down until your bones snap and it's hard to breathe, you do just that. You find your way out. Your escape comes in the form of a house, tall and gray. Go there, and you're not in your cell anymore. The house is massive and blaring, windows cracked open and voices pouring out with the music. It's nighttime, but