from Love, with Trees and Lightning

Name one living thing that doesn’t
somehow bloom. None of them get to choose
the right conditions. Think of fire, of orchids.
She’s already up the street when he feels
his body pale, close, and become insufficient.
“If you go,” he says out the door, “I go too.”

Catie Rosemurgy

Post St. By Natalie Nicoles
(Everything she does is magic.)

“That is part of the beauty of literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from everyone. You Belong.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

There, Joe Zeitlin for Toast

Trapped by visiting relatives. Have decided to hide out in the kitchen. (The empty kitchen.) The house echoes so quietly, now that everything has gone and not even the ghosts remain. All but Alexandre who keeps fiddling with the doorknob, anxious for tomorrow. I have my suitcases out today, but I can only stare and stare. Rooted like a prairie plant in front of my wardrobe, wondering if there is a spell or charm I could recite to make my valises pack themselves. Forever promising myself this will be the last summer spent yearning for people. People in places only seen in photographs so worn from my fingertips across their faces, it makes me want to cry. 

Forests of Queen Anne’s lace (not elderflower, though, no matter how hard I wish it) grow right along the seaside. Reminds me of afternoons sipping elderflower champagne with Luna, cool grass tickling our bare feet and Tigerlily skin warming in the sunshine. I keep seeing polar bears in my dreams, but it’s summer, you see, and they are all melting away. Ice cracking from their fur, frozen puddles under my bare feet and where have I left my wellies? The bravest thing I’ve ever done was a success, you see (the Truest words are always spoken when you cry) but I’m left wading in the teardrops.