Dear Taco,

It’s been four months now. Four months since you left us. Four months since I last saw your face or stroked your neck. Somehow, it feels as if I saw you yesterday. Somehow, it feels as if you were just a dream. I know you can’t hear this, but I have to say it anyways. I have to say everything I never got the chance to tell you.

    I remember the first time I heard your name. I remember how ridiculous it sounded to me, and how distraught I was that Maren picked you over the pretty paint horse I had seen. Taco, what a ridiculous name. A horse should be named something beautiful and regal, not after some food. This was the extent to which my five-year-old self considered your arrival into my life.

I can see him running around
Up above the clouds
His bark is soft but loud
I want to go and visit him
In that place
But I can only look at pictures
With close-ups of his face
I think of his time on earth
That he filled my heart with mirth
I will never forget his smile
As we walked in the door
It made me feel happy
And so much more
He loved squirrels
They would make him spin into whirls
When I come through the slider
I think of him
My sweet, sweet Cider.

 

Dear God if I can't wake up tomorrow from these bruises and cuts, that tear up with sorrow. please send me to the day.. I had my first ice cream cone, send me to the day I had my first kiss, send to me to my first laugh, send me to that secret path, that led to the apple tree out back, where I met a gentle deer. When I arrive pull this knife from my back, erase the scars from my heart, hold my hands in yours and put this puzzle back together. Make me beautiful again, paint my eyes with pink so everything looks lovely, color in my cheeks again so I look lively, collage my memories, of happiness, I hope you can accept me.. unlike this world has. Please tell me, You like my crooked smile, my stretch marks, my acne scars, my snorting laughter, my quirky personality, my broken half, my dirty hands and tarnished mind. Could you? Look down at me and shine? Let me see it in your smile, let me feel it in your touch,

I wrote a short story about someone I think I love. 
I'm not sure how-
how I wrote the story or how I love them. 
I changed things a little bit, so people wouldn't suspect.
They didn't. 
This happened a while ago: going on a year, a good year, a year full of 
full of
hope?
I'm not quite sure.
For a time afterwards, I regretted writing it. 
I felt love no more. I liked to think that I had matured, moved on, become...
better. 
But today I look back at my short story
and I realize what I thought for a time afterwards was true. Not in the way I had thought. 
My love has matured. Become better. It is no longer just a childish carefree love, but a love deep, based in a mentality that we share. The most careful, protected love. I know better now, than to just love the surface.
Even if I'm not sure how I love-
at least now I know I do.