I hold up the skirt of my gown in one hand so I don’t trip on the staircase, the lantern in my other hand swaying with each step.  The sun is reaching for the sea, longing for its cold embrace as night draws nearer.

The wind is picking up.  Clouds are building, promising an impressive sunset and a terrible storm.  I will stay up tonight, I can never sleep during weather like this.

My memories hold the ghosts of ships resting at the bottom of the sea.

It doesn’t matter how often I walk these stairs, I’m always out of breath by the time I reach the lantern room.  Below, the waves are crashing harder and harder against the rocks, and if I listen to them long enough they tell me about the souls lost beneath them.

And I’m always listening.

I know some of the lost souls by name now, I know what their last thoughts were, I know the panic they felt.  The waves tell me all that they know, which is usually too much.  It is not in their nature to hold back.

Carefully, I pull the candle out of my lantern and use its flame to light the thick wick of the large oil lamp.  The lenses around me amplify the light, and I find myself squinting as I check the oil level.  Tonight will not be the night my light goes out.

I walk back to the staircase, but I don’t go down.  There is a cable-knit sweater I keep on the end of the railing, and I pull it over my head, mussing up my braided hair.  I don’t care, the wind will do the same.

I step out onto the gallery quickly, shutting the door behind me and checking to make sure I haven’t blown out my light.  The wind is strong up here, and it tries to carry me away.  It is too confident in itself to realize it would drop me.

The dark clouds are on fire as the sun sinks.  I hear thunder in the distance.  It is summertime, but the air does not listen to seasons and it is cold tonight.  My nose and cheeks are red and my hair is flying into my eyes but I scan the horizon, praying for the ships that will have to weather tonight.

Tonight, my beacon of light screams danger.  Tonight, the waves may tell me new names.  Tonight, I will wait up in case of a wreck.  In case there are survivors.  In case I could help.

I go back inside, picking up my lantern.  The stairs groan and settle as I start my way down.  I think I shall set a kettle to boil for tea.  Perhaps bake some scones.  Anything to occupy my hands and pass the time.

I have a long night ahead of me.

 

I entered the caverns to find her.  They say she’s lived there for decades, deep in the bowels of the earth, with eyes that could pierce souls and ears that could hear unspoken things.  One of the last of the living sages.

Whenever I asked about her, people would stop and shiver, their eyes darting around as if she might find out their darkest secrets.  They told me stories in hushed tones, warning me of how a child of a friend of a friend once went down there to find her and never returned.  They would warn me not to let my curiosity lure me to her.

They fear her.

Everyone has secrets, and the thought of someone finding out such things just by looking at them was enough to keep them far away from the cavern’s entrance.

The sounds of daytime faded behind me as I stepped deeper into the dark.  It didn’t take long for my ears to only hear the drip, drip, drip, of water hitting stone and the thump, thump, thump of my own heartbeat.  I walked slowly, trying to get my eyes to adjust, but the light of the entrance had disappeared at the first bend of the path.

Some told me there was no sage, only endless tunnels to get lost in.  It was easy to believe them once I was shuffling blindly through the dark.  It was easy to believe anything at that point.

Then the glowworms started shining.

If I stayed quiet, and did not touch, they continued shining, leading me deeper with their soft blue lights.  I started walking to the rhythm of the dripping water so as to not disturb them.  They were the stars of the underworld.

Down I journeyed into the earth.  The ceiling rose, walls widened, and in time I found myself walking through open spaces paved with smooth rock, littered with stalagmites and stalactites, puddles and drop-offs.  A mist started appearing above me, like the barest hint of clouds, and something inside me told me you’re closer, closer, close.

They all warned me.  Every one that I spoke to, they all said the same things.  She sees, she hears, she knows.  Finding her costs your secrets.  Finding her costs your sanity.

They did not know I was going insane anyway.

They did not know I could never find someone to listen to my secrets.  They did not know how no one saw, no one listened, no one knew.  I could not find a way to tell them.

I was going insane, after all.

The stories could not scare me.  They only made me want to look more.  I wanted it so bad I finally entered the tunnels to look.

Now I’m standing inside a cavern lit by millions of blue glowworms, listening to dripping water echo into the darkest corners, and I’m finally breathing again.  I will find her, I am so close.

Just once, I want to be understood.

The door in the back of the storage room is locked.  It has been that way since the day I bought this place, before I swept out the dust and cobwebs and stocked the shelves with bright colors.

I haven’t found a key that fits the lock, and all my attempts to pick it have failed.  Even the ring of ancient keys that came with the store can’t unlock the door.  In fact, the ring of keys don’t match any of the locks in here.

The morning is still yawning, sending pale yellow beams to peek through my windows.  I’m standing behind my counter, moving the bolts of silk that line the wall.  It only takes a few bolts being used to send the shelves into chaos, so I’m often standing here, reorganizing the shelves.

The rest of the store is filled with my work.  Beautiful silk on the framework of bamboo, cherry, maple, and birch.  Handpainted, embroidered, or trimmed with lace.  I made every single fan on display, and I’ve been selling them for a long time.

It’s been years since I was handed a ring of ancient keys that didn’t fit any locks and dragged my first box of fans behind the dusty counter.  I’ve given up trying to open the locked door inside the storage room, but it never leaves my curiosity.  It leaks out of my mind sometimes in black painted locks and keys embroidered in golds and silvers.

People ask me where I get my inspiration.  I laugh and tell them this place, this place, it haunts my work.  I don’t tell them how it grabbed my heart the day I first saw it, I don’t tell them how it creaks and whispers in words I can almost understand.

I don’t tell them I come here in my dreams, and only then has the door in the back unlocked for me.

Beautiful, impossible things come out from behind that door.  Oranges that taste better than candy, fairies with toadstool umbrellas, trees from forests too old for this world, kittens with wings and birds with antlers and golden doves with silver lined wings.

They fill my dreams and echo in my mind, and I catch glimpses of them between the bolts of silk and in the lining of my fans.  I’ve given up trying to unlock the door, I have, I tell it to myself every morning.  I’ve given up, it doesn’t want to be unlocked.

But someday, perhaps, the store will know me, the lock will trust me, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll try the door and it won’t be locked.  This place, this place, this place . . .

It haunts me.

He plays music in the streets on a violin made of white birch wood.  Children are always gathering around him, dancing to his music.  He stops and plays for them, for as long as they want.  I usually see him at evening time and dusk, or in the pale hours of dawn.  I think he loves the hours when time is not so busy and minds are not so set.

I can’t sleep tonight.

Life has built up, and the chaos is becoming too much.  I don’t want to face tomorrow, and sleeping will only bring it to me faster.  I slip out the front door and into the moonlit streets.  The city is washed in silvers and blues, cool and sleepy, waiting for the impossible to happen.

There’s something about how one thinks, once the sun goes down.  It makes you believe things, do things, say things you wouldn’t have before.  I wonder if perhaps I didn’t stop walking, I could go on and on until I wander into a different life.  I could walk farther than the deadlines and expectations.

I could run away, and never look back.

Faint music floats by me on a phantom wind.  It’s soft and longing, and for a moment I almost believe it is the echo of my own yearning.  I almost believe the music is coming from me.

Night has that sort of effect on the mind.

The sweetly haunting music pulls me, and I turn from my path to the edge of the city.  My slippered feet are silent on the cobblestone streets, and the music is telling me that I’m floating.  I haven’t felt so light in a long, long time.

I find him on second street, playing his white violin that gleams almost silver in the moonlight.  He is walking slowly, like someone with all the time in the world.  I am not the only one drawn to his music, and I pause just short of joining the handful of night wanderers.

There’s a girl, holding a younger boy’s hand, both of them wearing tattered clothes a size too small.  Behind them is an old man, bearing a lost look in his tired grey eyes.  At his side walks a teenage boy, with bruises on his knuckles and sadness on his shoulders.  To his right is a woman with a smock buttoned over her nightgown and paint staining her fingers.

The music turns into something welcoming and warm as the violinist turns to look straight at me.  The stars are in his gaze.  He smiles and I suddenly have the courage to join the others around him.  His pale bow glides long over the strings, and we all follow as he starts walking again.

I offer my arm to the old man, and he leans on me with the weight of forgotten years.  A small hand slips into mine, and I find the girl and boy at my side.  She looks up at me, clinging to my hand with all the strength of a frail, tattered heart.

The music wraps around us, morphing into something full of happy memories as we approach a home with its lights still on, casting a yellow light over the shoulders of a young man standing in the open doorway.  His face, full of worry, melts into relief at the sight of us, and we all stop in the yellow light.

The violinist turns to the old man, his music swaying back and forth with the sounds of home.  The old man’s eyes clear for a moment, and he pats my hand before releasing my arm.  He walks forward, and the man in the doorway comes out to meet him.  Together they walk inside, the young man turning his head to offer a nod of thanks before closing the door behind them.

The violinist nods back, his music gathering us up again as he leads us on.

The moon is high overhead when we stop at another house.  Window boxes hold sleeping flowers, their closed buds the colors of paint flakes.  The violinist looks over at the woman with stained hands and frustration in her steps.  She is looking at her window boxes with a wistful sort of gaze, as if she wants to paint the night sky on them.  Fantastical, playful notes fill the air, and her footsteps shed their weariness as she walks inside.

We go on, and the music becomes aching and sad.  I am tearing up, though the music is not mine.  I look over to the boy with shaking hands and red-rimmed eyes, and I feel the music open up like the arms of a loved one.  The boy takes one unsteady breath, and tears start streaming down his face.  It’s a release, steady and long, and it lasts until he is at the entrance to his apartment.  He pauses with his hand on the door, and the music turns soft and gentle.  His shoulders lift just a bit, and he offers us the slightest smile before he goes inside.

It is just me and the two children with tattered hearts.  We turn onto my street, and the violinist starts playing a new tune.

My mind is clear, my thoughts finally sorting themselves into places I can find them again in the morning.  Stopping before my front step, the music nudges me to go inside, but I can’t.  Not yet.

There is still a small hand holding mine, and I don’t really want to let it go.

Desperately, I look to the violinist.  The girl slips her hand out of mine, and she walks over to him, catching hold of the hem of his coat.  He nods to me reassuringly, his music telling me it’ll be alright.  The little boy looks up at the violin, his eyes wide as the moon, and the violinist looks down at them with a soft smile.  He will look after them.

The music is pressing sleep on me now, and my eyelids are heavy.  It chases me even after I am inside, filling me with dreams and courage.  Tomorrow is coming, and I will rise to face it.

My head sinks into my pillow as the music fades into the night.

As I stirred the boiling water, I started to think perhaps I’d made too much pasta.

Groaning, I put the strainer into the sink.  It would be fine, I would just have to store the leftovers in the fringe, next to the containers of soup and pancakes and rice.

At least I never made too little.

The fear was always there, biting at the back of my thoughts.  It wasn’t like my fear of hights, or my fear of crowded spaces.  It wasn’t something big that would make me run away screaming.

It was little.

And quiet.

And always there.

Is it enough? It whispered, so quiet I wouldn’t notice I was listening until it was too late. Are you sure you won’t want more? Can you really call that clean? Is that really all you need?

I would find myself double, triple-checking instructions.  Knotting my threads just a few more times.  Explaining things a little further.  Packing extra clothes, and maybe an extra notebook.  Or two.  Watching reactions, memorizing everyone’s likes and dislikes.

Just to be safe.  Just to be sure.

It pulled me down until one day I lay motionless on the living room floor, captive to the patient whispers.  My eyes stared unfocused into the blank white ceiling as the whispers grew louder.  As they stopped asking questions.

You will never be enough.

I’d known it all along.  I couldn’t fight it anymore.  Just the thought of sitting up made me want to cry with exhaustion.

You will let everyone down.

I couldn’t be everywhere.  I couldn’t always know what was needed, or what I’m supposed to do, or how to do it.  No one does.

No one does.

No one does.

My chest rose as I breathed in.

I don’t have to be everything.  I don’t have to be there for every fall, every thought, every need.  Making sure everything’s under control was never my job.

Air rushed through my lips as I breathed out.

Today, I ate leftovers from the fridge.  Like wind at the end of a storm, I am learning to settle.  I’m telling myself to have patience.  I’m fighting the impulse of fear.

Right now, that fight looks more like a small child with a flyswatter, facing a swarm of wasps.  But someday, someday . . .

I’m coming with a flamethrower.

I think there are people who come into your life that are the color blue.  Calm and deep as a lake, they soothe and heal the people around them.  Their dreams are barely big enough for their body, and they don’t usually sleep much.
Be gentle.
They’re often holding tears inside, locked up in the fear that if they let it crack open they’d drown you.

Some people are purple.  Free and confidant, they’ve got spunk and sass and they’re not afraid to use it.  They have a personality big enough for two and a heart to match.
Love them.
They hide it well, but when they go home they often feel alone.

Some people are green.  Knowing one is to feel alive, they want to grow and nurture anything and everything.  They have a quiet, steady smile, with sharp eyes that see when you are hurting.
Help them.
They tend to carry the world on their shoulders, and no one should bear that weight alone.

Some people are pink.  Bright and bubbly, they’re almost always up for a party.  A little oblivious with a sweet personality, it doesn’t take much to excite them.
Protect them.
Inside, they tend to loathe the very things you love about them, and they take every word to heart.

Some people are yellow.  Rays of sunshine with hearts of gold, they always know how to make you smile.  They’re funny and adventurous with creative souls.
Be kind.
They’ll make themselves vulnerable just to make you laugh, and you don’t realize how easily they can be crushed.

Some people are brown.  Mature and grounded, they sometimes look short from their feet being buried so far in the ground.  A constant and loyal friend, they have a surprising sense of humor.
Reassure them.
You can’t always know what made them age so fast.

Some people are orange.  Sugar and spice served best on ice, they can be hard to know.  Beautiful as a sunset with a little fire inside, they can be great friends or bitter enemies.
Be patient.
They tend to think with their mouth, and they often don’t mean it.  It’ll be hard, but they need you just the same.

Some people are grey.  You’ll meet them and wonder what it is about them that makes you uneasy.  They’re nice enough that they’ll gain your trust, but there’s something dark that swirls inside them.
Watch your back.
Maybe you’ll help them find color, or maybe they’ll stab you when you least expect it.

There will be people who are black.  They are so lost, everyone can see it.
Be careful with them.
You’re holding out a hand to a drowning man and he will pull you under to save himself.

The graveyard is crowded with headstones and trees, rolling over hills and stretching for the horizon.  The late evening light is lining everything in orange as I run through the rows of headstones.  I hear the shouts behind me but can no longer see my pursuers.  They do not know these gray hills like I do, and with the long shadows and twisting rows, it is easy to end up running in circles.

Most of the stones here were engraved by the very people buried beneath, and the words they bear are more of a last confession and warning to the living than they are a comfort to those that come to mourn.

I brush stray hairs from my face, ducking behind a large oak.  Blue and yellow wildflowers are clumped beside me, closing with the fading light.  I always loved the patches of flowers that grew here.  They remind me of who I wish to be.

Color amidst gray.  Brightness against dark.  Softness in a hard place.

I was born in the height of spring, when the meadows were filled with blue and the trees were bursting with pink.

Early in my childhood I embraced the warmth of the sun, and I try to bring its light with me wherever I go.  It is my desire to share it with the world.  Yellow sweaters are my beacon, a ready laugh a sign of welcome, and my ear is ever listening for the dark cracks inside.  I want to reach out to others with sunshine in my hands.

They do not all wish for light.  I feel so fragile sometimes, when my efforts won’t work and I wonder if I am doing it wrong.  It is then that I wonder if I can stand trying one more time.  If it would be worth it.  I’m only one of many.

The headstone before me stares me down, cold dark slate edged with golden light.  The dates tell me that the man buried here died in his fifties.  I may not succeed, but I hope they will say of me ‘he still fought anyway’.

The shouting of my pursuers has gotten far away and bewildered.  They are forgetting their taunts and sneers with every turn they make, instead remembering their ghost stories and fears of dark places.  I stand up, brushing dirt from my jeans, and walk in the direction farthest from their cries.  This place has become a part of me, I do not fear it.

I was born in the midst of a storm, when the wind was filled with torn petals and the rain smelled like perfume.

I think the storm got trapped beneath my skin.  It is where I hold my stories, creativity, and words, words, words.  They simmer on the surface in chaos and I want to let them out, but they get stuck in my ribs and my lungs whenever I open my mouth.  I have to pry them out and guide them to my lips, and that means I have to be confident that they are worth it.  Sometimes I’m not so sure.

I stop for a moment beneath a cherry tree, most of its pink blossoms a blanket for the ground.  There is a small stone there that I go to see whenever I visit.  It may be the smallest headstone in this graveyard, but once I read its words it didn’t matter what size it was.  I could never shake it from my mind.  To all the dreams I had, I’m sorry for being afraid.

I was born amid the falling of hail, when the sky was filled with ice and the ground could do nothing but endure.

Sometimes my words are so heavy from being inside me, and they tumble out like the pelting hail.  I try to soften them into droplets, like a sweet summer rain, so that they might be useful to the ground they hit.  I was given these words for a reason, and it is my wish to use them.

Here’s a secret.  I do not know what I’m doing.

But if I am to learn, I must start somewhere, and for me to give up when I realize I don’t know is comparable to taking the wheels off my bike when I want to ride it.

The trees and stones around me have become silhouettes.  I climb the stone wall that guards the edges of this graveyard, and pause at the top to look behind me.  My pursuers are either jumping at the headstones in the dark or they have given up their search.  Either way, I have slipped out of their reach once again.

Here’s a secret.  I have broken, and I will break again.

Nothing hurts like anticipation, and once pain is felt there are so many paths people take to avoid feeling it again.  Listen closely, let me tell you what I know.  Those paths do not avoid pain.  Nothing hurts like anticipation, but regret is the one thing that’s worse.

Here’s a secret.  It does not matter that I have failed.

I am learning to see failure as a stepping stone instead of a pit.  Some days I fail in even remembering that, but that does not mean I stop.  I am still here.  I am carrying light in my palms and words under my skin.  I may not be as good with either as I would like, but I still use them to spread light and warmth and color.

Just try and stop me.

The world could swallow me whole if I let it.

The western countryside rolls on and on and on.  It’s such a change from the hugging buildings and crisscrossed streets and closeness of my home that I’ve been happily silent for most of the car ride.

I’m riding with my cousin, who’d picked me up from the airport.  Eventually.  Apparently he’d driven in three complete circles before finding the place where I was waiting for him.  It’s just over an hour drive from the airport to his house, and the landscape changed as soon as the airport disappeared behind us.

I’d forgotten how far land can stretch, hugging the curve of the earth with its bumps and divots.  Rows and rows of crops mesmerize me as I stare out the window.

There are lovely smells of grass and summer breezes and good dirt, and there are unpleasant smells of cows and manure and hot rubber on blacktop.

My face is an open book as we encounter each new thing.  I know I’m wide eyed in wonder at everything that is mundane to my cousin, but I don’t care.  It isn’t mundane to me, so I wrinkle my nose, or stare, or point out the eleventh barn we’ve passed so far.

There is wildlife just off the road, and I know they aren’t deer, but I also can’t remember what exactly they are called.  Their sandy brown coats and white bellies stick out just enough to be seen in the tall grass.  Black horns poke up from their heads, the tips forked at the ends.  They’re just standing there, two –no, three– of them, looking for all the world as if they own the land themselves.

“Antelope?” I ask.  I’m careful not to say cantaloupe, because that, I know, is a fruit.

“Pronghorn.” he says, barely glancing over. “There’s a loner that visits us every autumn.  The kids named him Alfalfa.”

I look out the window again, picturing what it would be like to have a pronghorn near my house often enough to name it.  I have to smile at that, because if just one of those visited my house it would drive the neighborhood dogs wild and freak out the Hendersons next door for at least a week.  Poor thing would never come back after that ordeal.

Billowing storm clouds are gathering, from white and fluffy on top to dark and flat at the bottom and so, so, big.  They fill the sky and make the rolling hills feel small, and me even smaller.  The air has changed again, and in it is the combined smell of dust and approaching rain.

I can’t wait to sit on my cousin’s front porch, his kids crawling all over us, to watch the storm blow in.  I can’t wait to breathe deep and explore this place.  The kids will want to show me everything that’s normal for them, if only for the sheer entertainment of watching my reaction.  There’s something vast and wonderful about going somewhere so different from home.

It helps me remember how big the world can be.

And that it’s waiting to be explored.

We live in the forest, but never far from the border.  Never far from open spaces and busy towns where the creatures won’t go.

You can survive them.  My parents would tell me.  I used to wonder why their voices strained with held-back desperation.  You can survive them, but you cannot befriend them.

They have fangs.  Sharp, hollow fangs, dripping with venom.  The strands of their fur are colored black or brown or red, sometimes a blend of all three.  Their little paws hold sharp claws inside, and their long ears can hear you tip-toeing over moss.  They have tiny gleaming eyes and a nose that’s always quivering with anticipation.  Often, you can spot them among the roots of the trees, under the thick of bramble, or inside the hollow of rotting wood.

Sometimes, if you look up, they are in the branches.  Sometimes, if you get too close, they spread their feathered wings and dive for you, their mouths an unnatural bright red.

Killer rabbits.

You can survive them, but you cannot befriend them.

My grandfather tried once.  He almost died from their venom.  I wanted to see.  He would always say.  I wanted to see the wings up close.

Now his legs are paralyzed and his hands shake.

My cousin tried.  She found a nest of babies and tried to take one.  Its shrill cries of fright would have had any adult bounding to rescue it, but in the end it was its own bite that caused her to put it down and flee.  You’d think the venom of a baby bunny would be small.  Diluted.

My cousin lost her arm and laid in a coma for two years.

My family knows the warnings, but they can’t seem to stop us.  Not all of us.  I understand the desperation in my parents voices now.  It runs in our blood.

They are dangerous.  I am drawn to dangerous things.

They can be survived.  I’m looking into its dark beady eyes.

You cannot befriend them.  It is staring back into mine.

The rabbit is watching me from across a small clearing as I sit cross-legged in the grass.  I have done this every week for months, my back straight as a ruler, my eyes bright as the full moon, my hands trembling with excitement.

I want to touch its fur.

My parents would be distressed if they saw me, but not surprised.  The rabbit is red and black, and it keeps returning every week to watch me.  I have made myself into a riddle, one that is just hard enough to keep wondering about.

Its ears point at me like two daggers, its nose twitching like aspen leaves in the wind, its predatory gaze full of malice.

It wants a reason to attack.

I am unraveling the knotted reasons why I am drawn to them.  Why we all are drawn to them.  Slowly, I am learning.

They are the dizziness of looking off the edge of a cliff and they are the held breath of swimming in depthless water.

More than that, they are the mystery of something that cannot be touched.

It is the game they play.  The bait they use to lure us.  They wait until the unknown becomes unbearable.  They wait until one of us breaks.  It is how they lure in lone dogs and stray cats and reckless crows.

But I think their weapon is also their curse.  Born to exploit their preys’ curiosity, they themselves bear a dangerous amount of it.  Dangerous enough to hold one back from attacking me.  Dangerous enough for it to creep closer with every encounter.

Dangerous enough for it to check itself and forget its venom.

Sure it can be survived, but I want more.

I want to touch its fur.

Tell me a secret.

I’ll tell you mine.

Are you thinking about what scares you?  Are you remembering something you’ve never had the courage to say?  Are you opening your closet and freezing at the sight of the skeletons?

Close it.

There are secrets no one thinks of when they’re told to turn out the pockets of their lives.  There are some things they never tell anyone; not because they want to keep it from others, but because they don’t realize it’s hidden.

Tell me those secrets.

Tell me about the items you’ve held onto, perhaps scattered around your room.  Maybe you’re not the kind of person who holds onto stuff, not physically, but some things stay in your memory nonetheless.

There is a softball sitting on my desk that my brother and I found in a field a long, long, time ago.  We fought over whose it was until I hid it in my sock drawer and left it there for years.  It’s old and cracked and there’s black duct tape over a spot where it had ripped, but I still like the way it feels in my hands even though they’re much bigger now.

I have an old library card from when I lived in another state, another time.  It hasn’t been useful for nearly a decade, but it still bears the faded marks of one of my first ever signatures, written in terrible handwriting because my hand was still a stranger to holding a pen.

There is an old calendar in my drawer from 1985 that used to belong to my grandfather, and it is waiting for a year when the days of the week once again match up with the dates of the month so that I can hang it on a wall one more time.

Tell me your secrets.

I’ll tell you mine.

I eat my pizza from crust to tip.  Most of my dreams are out of focus or not completely there because if I pay too much attention I wake myself up.  I love the smell of rose because it reminds me of eating Turkish Delight.  When I go up or down stairs I try to finish on my right foot.  I snort when I laugh because I loved the sound of it when I was younger and learned how to make myself do it.  When I read I usually have to cover up the next lines because my eyes like to skip down and catch spoilers before I can get to them.  I like to hit multiples of five when I adjust the volume.

I still think about the haircuts I’ve given that didn’t turn out.

I love boxes disguised as old books.

I miss the feeling of bare feet on grass.

Tell me your secrets.

I’ll tell you mine.