I. i like to pull the sheets over my head and terrify myself with thoughts of success. is this how the great poets felt?  i wonder. were they, too, dominated by feelings they didn't understand, emotions too big for words? is every work a magnum opus on a greater cosmic scale than the last? and i feel suffocated by my own expectations and the knowledge that i can meet them. i am crushed by pretentiousness; bohemian ideals rip my soul to shreds. in those early hours, my muse flees on moonbeams and my heartbeat flutters in iambic pentameter but the words don't come. beautiful thoughts do not make one a beautiful person, and writing self-indulgent poetry on a bus after three in the morning does not make one anything but tired. and maybe you can read your own palm and predict your death within twenty-four hours, but what does that tell you, other than the fact that you may have too much-little time on your hands? i want so badly for you to be proud, because this is my magnum opus; i can feel it in the throb of the headache in my left temple and my aching back against the bus seats. i don't know why the gentle bounce of the wheels on this thing going 'round and 'round make everything more clear, but in the dim light of the stars, my future is laid out among cacti and desert scrub.

II. i feel like there is a promise written in our subtext, one that i don't remember making (or breaking, for that matter). i would suppose that what is unsaid can be just as important, but it seems so presumptuous to think that we as humans can know what really matters. cause and effect is far beyond our grasp, or perhaps even below us on a level so basic we cannot comprehend it. after all, we as humans also have a tendency to overcomplicate things. this is simply one more way in which i am completely ordinary.

III. je suis allé à une grande maison avec une porte rouge, une maison avec de petites fenêtres. je ne sais pas ce que j'avais, mais je sais ce que je n'ai pas maintenant.

IV. one language cannot encompass everything i am feeling. une langue ne peut pas englober tout ce que je ressens.

V. shhh. the house is quiet for once and i want to enjoy the creak of wood laminate beneath my feet and the loud groan of my bedroom door as i swing it back and forth on its hinges. i want to be lulled to sleep by the hiss of air through the not-quite shut window and the crinkle of the cheap venetian blinds as they flutter in the breeze. i want to hear my heart beat in time with yours and kick off my blankets when our combined warmth is too much to take. then i want to wake up, heartbroken when it turns out to have been a dream, and spill my feelings out of my pen, ink turning salty with bittersweet tears. sweet dreams must be too much to ask.

VI. driving through the desert is better with fingers twined between the seats, i hope to discover. it must be better with two voices harmonizing with the radio and two peals of breathless laughter slipping through open windows. so i'll make the moment happen, the one where i realize this is my sweet dream come true, and i'll let joy seep through the burning asphalt into our tires and our seats and every inch of our bodies and we'll have the perfect fairytale getaway, escaping into the sunset.

VII. they both lived happily ever after. the beginning.