Jealousy
Jealousy,
I want you to be completely jealous.
Desire,
I want you to want me badly.
Emotions,
I want you to feel your heart beating.
Logic,
I want you to think of me always.
Vanity,
I want to be the only thing you see,
When you drift off to sleep,
Or when you think of beauty.
I want to be your waking daydream,
Your childish nightmare,
Your everything,
And everything between always.
Jealousy,
I want to be yours, yours only.

“Shall we be going fishing today?” Esther stood in the doorway, peering into the dim, crowded cabin, where three of her four brothers and both her sisters were crammed uncomfortably into the single room. Her mother looked up from the far corner by the wood stove where she was cooking something for lunch, probably old dry rabbit for the hundredth time this month. “It’s possible. Did you find any berries?” “Too late in the year,” Esther shook her head, then gave an exclamation and hurried to the corner of the cabin.

Chapter Two

I used to think Dad liked me, back when I was little. Somewhere around the ages of seven, eight or nine, before I understood the difference between doing something to protect somebody’s innocence or doing something because you loved them. People think those two can coexist, but they don’t. If you truly love somebody, you’re not worried about protecting them—just making sure that they’re doing the right thing.

“Rachel,” he said, in his mischievous way. I rolled my eyes toward him, exasperated.

“What?”

“I made lemonade.”

I should be simple and cute
My natural default
And be the sweet girl everybody thinks I am

But sometimes I want to rebel against that boundary
Do something different,
Change from being the same old, same old
Me

Just come with me
We’ll dress up like hipsters
Be brats with braids
Be wary, so ever wary
Don't upset me
You'll be paying for it

Maybe bohemian would suit me better
Have a free spirit and run through fields of daisies
Wear my hair out and thread beads in it
Sew hippie things

*Written for Light Magazine’s A Heart Set Apart

I went straight to the café after my conversation with Clara. The winter sky was dark by the time I arrived, and the light streaming out of the café’s windows reminded me of the shelter it was becoming to all of us who frequented that street corner.

They’re six and nine
They smell of daisies
And wear scalloped shorts

To them I’m this laughing, pretty girl
Blonde hair, blue eyes
‘Perfect’ hair, style so they said
And everything that matters

Oh, how glad I am that I display that
Because they’re so young
I can hardly blame them for
Not knowing what’s behind the scenes

I feel the pain you feel
Describing others' foreign wars
And I drown inside your fear
Being separate by millions of doors

And this is empathy, they said
Don't let it get inside your head
But they never felt what I felt when I bled
And they don't understand what they should do instead

I rise in fury with your anger
Shouting out against the world
And I am one with your loneliness
Feeling you can't move forward

And this is empathy, they said

"You can't be serious." He says, glancing over at me from the rocking chair he had sprawled himself on.
"Dead serious." I said, tightening the straps on my bag.
"First of all, this is barely logical. Do you realize that a) you're going to have to somehow travel halfway across the world, b) you have no money, and c) you're heading for almost certain death?" He shook his head. "You're a smart kid, and you can solve a lot of things, but you have to learn sometime that there are some things that are just out of your control, Alex."

I. Regress
I wanted her to turn around
So I could see her face
Confirm in real life
My biggest suspicion
That she was as pretty as she looked
In his pictures
I had met her once, before all of this
She was pretty then, but I hadn’t paid this much attention
I recognized her by her red-gold hair
Neatly curled and tapering down near her waist
Her voice was sweet and smart
I wanted her to turn around
But then she followed him out the door.