in the absence of the sun

by Emily Curtis

For Rublee, who told me I could and Ferry, who told me I should

And here I am, pouring my life into a notebook that will never know its importance.

You didn’t listen to me when I tried to explain that I have scars so long, so deep, you may never find the ends of them

Some people were just designed to be destructive

Here’s to the women who come home each day, unbutton the grief, shrug it off their shoulders and try to forget it for a while before they are forced to wake up and press repeat

Hearts don’t shatter they rot

My biggest fear is that I will end up telling you everything that keeps me up at night That you will store this information away and book a one way flight while I wait with trembling hands to see if those files get leaked

Love, I’ve found, is a very selfish beast

What happens under the blankets can either be pure magic or pure barbarity and when the latter is reported it is time and time again mistaken for the former -rape culture

We keep white flags in our back pockets in case of emergencies

If the pen is mightier than the sword, my pen is mightier than the thousands of daggers you stabbed into my back, leaving my skin slathered in blood you so proudly claim to spill

You scraped the smiles off my face to stich over your permanent scowl, stole my breath so that you could stop holding yours, snatched my eyes to pretend that you were awake, tore off my feet because yours were tired of standing, borrowed my brain so that you could stop hearing the voices that questioned the existence of your own, dug through my skin and cracked my ribs, found my heart and replaced yours in order to finally feel what others felt

The look he gave me through the dirt-stained windows as he waved me over The wetness of his face as I entered, the redness of his cheeks His swollen eyelids -the signs

I said “goodnight” but it sounded more like “goodbye”

That flicker in his eyes, the one you thought was love, turned out to be hell and chaos

If he does not respect you now, he never will It’s impossible to teach a whale to walk

Lies flow from your lips thick like molasses so sweet that I forget to think twice before blindly believing the words you feed me

We are unraveling like the loose strings on the sweatshirt you once gave me

You know I am delicate yet you stand idly by and watch me as I wilt -the daffodil

I sit on the floor and count my tears as you vomit words of hate

Little toy girls playing pretend, holding back tears so the powder on their faces won’t wash away and reveal the truth beneath it

You spit lies at my face while crossing your fingers behind your back but oh, you fool, you stood in front of a mirror

We compete to see who can prove they care less

He collected us for a living He had a degree in Lying and a masters in Manipulation

The shelves are slowly emptying They are pushed to the corners to make room for the humming machinery that comes from this era of novelty -my room looks more like a library

She told me she would barter her body for a prom date and I think that is the saddest thing I have ever heard

I hope Karma haunts your sleep Slips into your dreams and leaves you sweating and screaming

Things that make me unlovable: 1. the way I twirl my hair out of habit 2. never crying, even when I should 3. getting emotionally attached to books 4. how I use my writing for revenge 5. my quiet competitiveness 6. the way I point out my flaws like I’m trying to convince you of them 7. my constant need to please people 8. my fear of being judged 9. the fact that I made a list of things that makes me unlovable when really the list should only have one number: 10. zero

You are not allowed to be the main character of someone else’s memoir

It’s 12:55 pm and all that haunts me are my words they crawl out from under my bed and infest me they bite and they screech and they won’t let me be

I keep begging him to stay, pull up a chair and have another cup of coffee, but he always has somewhere else to be -Time

The words, they just flow out of her like tears they dry up on the pages and she will never feel satisfied because there is no perfect combination of letters that will adequately describe what she feels

They are all breathing slower, in sync with the soft humming of silence, and I wonder as their eyelids flutter who they are dreaming of

I wish I had the ability to sleep so peacefully, easily, but I am among the few who remain awake with the owls -in the absence of the sun

It is strange to think there was a time I was unaware of how much I would learn to fall in love with the satisfaction of spilling my soul with nothing but a pen and my words

They compete over who can become the best version of generic

I tried my best, but fixing a human isn’t the same as fixing a bike, or a car

I heard the footsteps of my fathers steel-toed boots as he left before the sun had risen and I thought for a moment that I took for granted how hard he works How dedicated he is

Fatigue dances behind my eyelids, but my brain still hums to the melody of the moonlight

1 am and I repeat your name like it’s Sunday, and I am praying for you

She was told so many times “She can’t” that now She won’t

I leave slowly one footstep a minute careful not to wake the sleeping beast you have become

As I write these words I ponder how soon I will forget these words and what I have to say and why I feel like writing this and what my pen feels like scratching away on the notebook leaning against my legs as I lie here in silence next to the dog whose name I will forget 157,680,000 seconds away from now and by then none of it will matter These words I write, why I decided to write them, none of it will matter

The love you are selling has been expired for some time -discounts won’t make it better

She can’t help but wonder when She will be taken under its wings and taught what it is like to look down among the living and observe quietly

I’m so run down you can’t even tell what I was before -road-kill

Who knew mixing words with feelings could be so infuriating & intoxicating

I figured if I held my breath long enough and sucked my stomach up under my ribs far enough and powdered my face pale enough and gave myself enough razor burns and plucked the hairs between my eyebrows until my eyes watered and painted my nails girly enough and squeezed my jeans on tight enough and demolished my natural beauty enough I’d be pretty enough

You fear the damage they could do if you let them know your secrets -why you push them away

I live among the hardcovers stacked in piles higher than Everest because it is easier to feel through fictional characters the loss the love the heartbreak the tragedy it all comes at once and then it is gone with the close of the cover -from the comfort of my bedroom