Category: life

A Girl in a Ghost Town.

When I first started venturing out into ghost towns, I was fascinated with the idea of being alone in a town.

I was trying to escape myself after a bad break-up.

I was disappearing without actually disappearing.

I felt gone like the people who left these places for various reasons.

I was looking for something that I didn’t know I needed, until I found it.

I imagined the ghosts of people long gone, loving and laughing on these forgotten grounds.

I fell in love with the personality of rusty, beat-up cars and houses with caved in foundations.

I fell in love with the way the breeze caressed my face differently than in the city.

I fell in love with the song of birds and insects.

I fell in love with the melody of swaying grass.

The structures reminded me of myself.

Abandoned, but standing.

Falling, but somehow still sturdy.

–S.

Lost & Found.


The road saved me, simple as that.

On many different days, driving many different ways.

I always thought I was driving to intentionally get lost,

away from my norm and into the unfamiliar,

but I was found.

I found myself on the road, somewhere between a ghost town and a sunset.

–S.

Yellow.

You are the taste of the color yellow.

I know that doesn’t make much sense, but I dance when I think of you.


You’re the last slice of cake,

the sweetest strawberry,

the house around the bend,

the song playing when they announce last call,

the song the breeze from the ocean sings,

the reason I believe in magic,

the feeling I get right before the main characters in a romantic comedy finally get it together and are about to kiss,

and the sweet dreamlike fog between awake and asleep.

–S.

Something Sacred.

Years ago, when we were broken-up, flirting with the idea of being together again, you kissed my ankle one desperately hot Texas night.

And that one innocent moment, held me for a long time, and still holds me today.

It hits me at random times. I can still see you kissing my ankle. And if I close my eyes really tight, I can almost feel it again. Even now.

I can still see you above me, the look in your eyes, holding my right leg up.

Tender.

Sacred.

Smiling.

Loving.

–S.

Black & Blue.

My heart seems to have only memorized the sweetest parts of our soul tie, but my mind knows better.

Although, you are the only person I will never stop looking for in a crowded place,

you are also the heaviest sadness I have ever known, the color blue so dark that it almost passes as black, pain so clear that I can only fall to my knees and succumb to its power, and the feeling of panic that mirrors having missed death by a mere breath.

–S.

Red.

My feet are glued to the tub. That’s what it feels like.

I can’t move. The liquid coming up and out of the drain turns from black to brown to brick to red, and it’s blood. The tub is filling. It climbs the sides of the tub and then runs over.

Everything is stained.

It’s alive.

Real.

Gritty.

Growing.

Changing.

Although I panic, I can’t help but touch it with my fingers. I feel it run through my fingers. It leaves a soft crimson behind.

And then I dip my arms in. I am covered in it.

When I can move my feet again, I lay down in the tub and submerge my entire face under and I come up for air like I’m taking my very first breath.

Blood.

Breath.

Gasping.

That’s what the truth finally coming to the surface feels like.

Like being born again.

–S.

Still.

I believe if you squint just right, you can still see us off in the distance, loving and laughing, fighting and kissing, sharing and giving.

In a parallel universe, or a sister life, we are still one, even though in this life, what’s done is done.

Off in the distance, look there, squint and wait for the light to hit just right, you can see my head on your shoulder.

And it’s still on your shoulder when I close my eyes at night.

–S.