Writing

Confetti rains down as flying squirrels fill the screen

You read your acceptance letter and I'm filled with overwhelming happiness

But I'm not ready

I wish I was underwater, my thoughts drowned out by silence.

The world above me muted.

The water cooling my skin.

Surrounded by that velvety liquid we call water.

That miracle.

Oh, how I wish I were underwater.

It was roughly ten hours too early for Private First Class James C. Bartholomew to be marching.

From childhood

we're taught the difference 

between heroes

and villains.

But maybe it 

just depends

on who's telling the story.

There’s a quiet beauty 
in the things you know won’t last,  
moments already fading  
even while you’re inside them. 

She will never stop moving
a sailboat restless at the mercy of great winds,
forever pulled by currents
no harbor can persuade to stay.