sparrow.

please dear, if my voice still carries any sound, find me. i’m sorry i was so silent. i think of writing to you all the time. 

i miss you.

parade your light, my dear. you are a marvel. 

logged back on to find a memory. saw a note from you and i smiled a little.
          
          this feels like writing a letter, in that i know it will take months to arrive. there’s safety in that. maybe i will tell you about my life.
          
          right now, i am sitting on a balcony watching the waves at a hotel i’m staying at with some friends. it’s 4:30 in the morning, i’m supposed to wake them when the sun starts rising so we can watch it from the shore.
          
          i’m in uni now, studying to be an english teacher if you can believe it. i was kicked out of the house where you stayed the night, but i still have the letters from my bed. the flower rotted away, though. 
          
          i fell in love with a girl. i’ve loved her forever, i think, though i didn’t know that until recently. we bake together every week and she laughs at my jokes. even the bad ones.
          
          i have good friends, the kind who give me trinkets because they thought of me when they saw it, and the kind who like it when i write them letters. i’m really lucky to have them.
          
          i’m not sure if i’m happy yet. sometimes, when it’s 2 am and i’m high and i’m lying on the road and i can see the moon and hear music and laughter from inside, i could swear i am. it feels like it’s the only emotion i’ve ever felt. and then the morning comes, and things look a little different in the daytime i suppose. i have hope though. 
          
          i hope you’re doing well, songbird. i know it’s a confusing time right now. you’re very loved. i love you, even now. i’m sure i’ll still think of you sometimes even when i’m old and tired. you’re going to do some really great things, i’m sure of it. call me sometime my dear, my number hasn’t changed.
          
          signing off,
          hazel jade

i was here. 

dear sparrow, 
          
          i wonder where the time has gone. i don’t really know. all i know is that four years ago, i couldn’t write a poem if it wasn’t an act of self harm. but now, i drive up a hill near the church and ruidoso-looking apartments and i see light poking in through the branches and bundles of green, peeking at a sight of me glancing up and down between the road and the enormity. i saw rain fall a couple days ago but oddly enough, there was just enough light to illuminate them. i thought they looked like gold specks in the air. now, i could write a poem about something as simple but beautiful as that. it almost makes me laugh. 
          
          when i was writing, i thought about you, dear friend. how i wish we lived on opposite sides of a village. i would write you pretty, aged, yellow letters and send them a bottle, like real poets do. then you could hold my voice in your hands and feel the pitch and intonation with every mistake or exaggerated scratch. how angry or excited or elated i am with the flick of a wrist. 
          
          you hope i have made an acquaintance with joy. i’m sure i’ve met her but i wish we could be better friends. but trust me when i tell you those delights— small and usual as they may seem— mean much, much more. 
          
          you for instance. i hope those delights wrap you in something pleasant and warm and soft and wonderful. there is beauty is small crevices and hidden compartments and strange corners. you just have to be willing, and sometimes daring, to look. 
          
          i know you will. 
          
          -birdie. 

i miss you.

holding hands. 
          the magic lantern.

"I burned so long and quiet, you must have wondered if I loved you back. I did, I did, I do."

okay, scales. 
          pestilence. black-and-white. chainlink. i hope these don't always make up the city of your mind. 
          when you need a light, a flash of green, you got me. i have enough fresh, lime-tinged air to share with you.