That is what happens to love when it has nowhere to go. It grows stale and bitter. It festers into something forlorn and feral.
Photography by Morgan Root
Echoes
There is nothing romantic to be found in endings. The poetry comes later, when the sun is set and nights are lonely, when nostalgia comes knocking and houses seem too large, when scars are healing but the memories still sting. There is no beauty in the absence of what once brought you joy. We write pretty words to remember what is lost, but after the ink has dried, we are only left with footprints and echoes. There is no art in heartbreak. There is only emptiness. There is only what was and what is left behind.
Photography by Boris Mirkin
Almosts
She looks at me, her eyes equal parts longing and grief. It’s as if I am gone though I am right in front of her, just a ghost, an intangible thing she wants but cannot have. I ache to touch her, to close the valley between us, to scatter her doubts to the dust. But circumstance commands I be still, my tongue tied, imprisoned by boundaries I cannot cross.
“I should go,” she whispers, and yet she does not move. We stand like statues until the silence chokes us, the empty air full of almosts, questions lodged inside our throats. That’s when I realize it was always going to end this way, with half our hearts dangling on a string, one foot in while reality demands we take two steps back.
“That’s probably for the best,” I answer, but the words crack around sentiment that begs her to stay. She nods because she knows, and I feel my chest constrict like a noose has stolen the very air from my lungs. I’d be a liar to say it doesn’t hurt, the sides of her I’ll never see, the stories I’ll never hear, the secrets we’ll never share. Between us are inches that may as well be miles, no more or less out of reach than she’s always been. And yet, I am left wondering: if I haven’t lost anything, then why do I feel so empty inside?
Photography by Abigail Saturday
Vestiges
And maybe we only ever find each other in the cracks in our souls, in the scar tissue made of habits we learned from others that get lost or left behind when that person leaves. We find each other in the pain of loss and bittersweet nostalgia that creeps up on us at the most unexpected times. We find who we are or were or could be in memories that cut us deep, in people who once made us whole. Maybe all we ever are is patchwork of the people around us and the impact they had on our lives. And maybe if I open up the wounds that hurt the most, maybe if I nourish them with good thoughts and warm light and fresh water, maybe I'll find you, blooming like flowers through the cracks in my soul.
Self-portrait
Paramour
Perhaps I’ll see her on the street, bump into her the way former lovers often meet. She’ll smile and ask about my life, and I will try not to notice that her presence cuts like a knife. And when we’re done choking on our pleasantries, she will turn her back on me. Because some things never change, and she always has somewhere else to be.
Photography by Abigail Saturday
Subtleties
They told two different stories, her mouth and her eyes. But louder to me still, was her silence and her sighs.
Self-portrait
Bird
I once fell in love with a bird. He came and he went, staying only until the summer was spent. I mourned him in orange and in brown, but he was never there when the colors came down.
There once was a bird who followed the seasons. He swore that he'd stay if I gave him one reason. To hell with the weather, he'd pluck every feather. He left it to me, but it wasn't to be, because I loved him for his wings and he cared only for leaves.
Photography by Abigail Saturday
Ghosts
I was dancing with ghosts, trying in vain to hold a memory in my arms
Self-portrait
Descent
I would have jumped for you.
You needn’t ask how high.
I would have leapt from mountain tops.
I would have fallen from the sky.
I knew what I was doing.
I was no mourning dove.
But did it ever feel like murder,
Watching me kill myself for love?
Self-portrait
Compass
I was done with feeling cheap, a toy you would play with but didn’t want to keep.
I was tired of the back and forth, of being a compass to someone who already had a north.
Photography by Boris Mirkin