i.

I can't help but think that if you were going to come, you would have already.
But it's always felt like that. You have always made me wait for you.
I know you are too proud to make it out without finding me.

Hello again. It's me. I'm in love. You are worried.
I'll drown myself should the river deign to have me.

ii.

I acted like I knew what was happening to us –
happening through us... happening in spite of us, in a way.
I can't stand how my mind works.
I could never really fit in there;
like sand in flour, or blood in water.

Why were they so mean?

Looking at myself hurts. I hate it, too.
Every day at school I saw a whisper in the shape of a person.
Right away I wanted to crush that girl's face and not look back,
even as Tenjou came sauntering in and things changed I thought we'd be fine.
I thought your eyes had not yet wandered so far.

Without you I would have been so reckless
and the garbage keeps piling up.

iii.

You took refuge in your own shallow ways,
an excuse to have your arms around me.
You were a part of me then.
Don't be so nervous, you said.

I read my books
and I looked into your eyes.
Everything in different colors.

You did not break my heart; only took back your half of it
and like a reptile I am growing it out again.
I want you to know.

How is Kanae?

iv.

I have come too far to stop now.

The skies shimmered; I used to dream
that someday we would be forever again.
But longing becomes exhaustion, and exhaustion becomes death;
when I left I couldn't take the academy with me.

I sleep in anger; I live in a web of anger
and I still pray for that to last forever.
I still pray that I'll never be weak enough to come back.

I still imagine you with me.
It doesn't work and it never does. Trust me.
I promised not to look for you,
I could never find you unless you wanted me to.

v.

I too am the vanishing girl.
She may have seemed – she may have truly been cruel, but...
I already knew. I saw them both.
I hope that you'll remember when you read this.

I want you to know
there's only one life for you, you have to choose.
I want you to know the coffin gates are still open.
I want you to look at me without your conquering grace
when you are again as you once were –
or worse, different entirely.

I look at the stars.
I can only run so far.

Enough is enough; no more kisses
and no other things less easily found.
You never could stop once you started
and the long chain gains another link in us.

I want you to know that I have built myself of pain.
That hell now lives in me.
I want you to understand why I want to bleed.

At night you built cities in my heart
and in the morning, where we ended up, you clumsily reached for me.
So stupid, so silent.
Dreaming of hate.

vi.

My love stood tall and proud.
Headlights hit my body and made it sweet.
I want you to remember I was thirteen.
I want you to say it.

I want you to say, "Yes, you were thirteen.
You were thirteen, and you were my sister, and I did it anyway."

vii.

You let me dare to be simple for once.
That feeling was nowhere else, that lack of affectation.
Truth, even as the ancient subtlety seeped into our skin.
Everything was so new, though I have refused to appreciate that lately.

When the stars were first born, were they already thinking of us?
In their eternal storytelling skulls.
You were my night sky, you were my candlelight,
my heart beat harder then.

Please remember me another hour.
I know, I know the eyes that watched you, looking for your light
and I wish you had hid it better.
I wish we could have remained simple.
Every day still feels like theft.

What am I, in and after you? An idea? A body?
A pattern in the photo album dust?
A bird that still can't fly?

viii.

What do you know about water?
What do you know of surfaces and depths?
I wonder if there is something to piece together there;
leylines of futures that could have been
if things went differently, if one of us had seen more.
If you had seen me climb the hill, if I had seen you start to tilt your gaze high.
I wonder which one of us would have been more surprised.

What a cunning way to share this joy
in this world of butterflies and kittens, in this world of long rain.

ix.

I roomed with Anthy for a few years.
It was a little place, near our university.
I don't know what I'm even trying to tell you,
just that we both are better, and have learned from each other.
We grew plants on the windowsills.
She taught me peppers, cherry tomatoes, strawberries.

I don't know what I want to say.

I don't have many more feelings to communicate, I guess.
Just updates. Filling gaps.
I don't know if you get these. I don't know if you read them.
This will be the last one I send.

Anthy says that you aren't able to listen.
Anthy says that there's nothing I can tell you that you wouldn't already know.
Anthy says that some people are born with two hearts,
and that some people are born without one.
That there are worse paths than this.
This is no longer about only us. I am dwelling.
I am dwelling, but at this point I have run out of revolution.

I don't know if we would recognize each other now, Touga.
I don't know anymore.

x.

I would love you, once.
The academy is rubble.
I am an only child.