The words I cannot say,

All alone, 

With silence growing on trees, 

The name of the trees I cannot say, 

I cannot describe the dandelions that hug its roots, 

The rights words I cannot say,

Because I do not know

I cannot hear the tones hiding behind the words,

The words taste different, 

Making my tongue dance in different rhythms,

I thought surely I would never forget, 

But now it is all lost

They have taken my words.

The tilt of a head 

Foggy muffles,

Eyes that are desperately grasping,

The unknown words you speak 

They are a mystery 

And I am a little detective trying to solve it 

I do not know the names of sicknesses,

Of pains from the burns of unsaid words,

Turned backs, 

These pains you cannot know 

And I cannot tell,

Now they have taken you too.

When did we change enough

For us to be lost, 

Buried between the lines of our sentences,

Our shared promises

Forgotten

Our sobs

The only sound left.

The train ride 

The man with a white cap, walked with a letter held carefully between his two fingers, about to push the doorbell. Although he had just parked his red delivery motorcycle in front of the apartment complex, lit by only a few orange street lights, the snow had already begun to fall and cling to the envelope. But the train went by too quickly for her to see what he did next. Did he find that there was no answer but that the door was unlocked? Did he accidentally walk into something that he should not have seen? Did he greet the person inside the apartment with a kiss on the cheek? He simply delivered the package and nodded as the recipient uttered a monotone “thank you” in the dark before the door slammed shut. What a boring story. So, instead, she liked to imagine things. So many possibilities to hope for and live in. She lived in between words and scenes like she had split open the seams of life to hide there and observe instead. 

She looked to the left to see there was a baby with his tongue out, arms climbing up and up his mother's neck. Releasing a loud “aaaa” to try to re-capture his mother's attention again. The suitcase they placed in between the seats, rolled dangerously close to the aisle of the train as both parents nodded away into sleep. After the conductor’s announcement, the family swiftly gathered their luggage, barely making it off at their stop. 

The night was slightly off. There was a boy seated diagonally across from her, with a leg strung on top of the other, airpods in both ears. He is careless of his surroundings and effortlessly beautiful, with eyebrows that look perfectly drawn on, sharp yet soft around the edges, hanging over dark brown eyes. His eyes are focused on his phone, head only bobbing up sometimes to check that hadn’t missed his stop. The white soles of the shoes were slightly dirty, peeking out from the neon yellow bag neatly placed on the seat next to him. He had finished a long day at volleyball practice, at his high school, or perhaps he was a university student. She wondered what he would say when he walked in the entrance of his home, would his mother greet him with something like “how was your day?” or would he say “it smells so good! Are we having curry tonight?” 

Earlier that day, she had wrapped her red knit scarf around her neck like someone would tie a necktie. She thought the day would a good one, or an uneventful one, because often those deflated to becoming “good days.” The short days without sunlight had all strung together, impossible to differentiate when the day began or ended. 

Her head bobbed down, and her eyes jumped open. She had nodded off in the hypnotizing sway of the train. While she was, she did not notice the boy across from her, looking at her. In fact, staring at her. The conductor announced, “Next is B stop. Please be sure not to leave any of your belongings.” As the train came to a stop, she rushed out into the blistering cold. 

A shadow followed after her. The footsteps in the snow multiplied slowly, careful at first. Then faster and faster. Bigger footsteps covered over the footsteps of her sneakers. She heard an awful lot of snow crunching. The scarf fell to the ground. Already collecting flecks of snow. She didn’t know what happened next. 

Would the police ever find it in the morning, under all of the snow?