Things I Learned in the Night

by Emily Byrnes

I fell in love that day, not because she was clumsy or cute, but because she still saw value in something so broken.

young love only means something when it’s written by adults.

I grow wildflowers from my back like a fertile garden and you pick them one by one until I am all bare roots and broken stems. You pluck the petals- She loves me, she loves me not but that’s the problem, see; I’m kneeling at your feet, offering you the skin off my back and still you need an old wives’ tale to prove that it’s enough. Plucking Petals

(There’s a reason you’re here. There is meaning in your journey. There is recovery. There are better brain days. There are fewer tears. There are smiles that aren’t so forced. There is happiness. Believe that.)

Please don’t blame me for running; the universe has lit so many fires under my feet I’ve been conditioned to flee at the sign of a spark. Pavlov’s Dog

He comes back after three long years and wants to try again. I say it would be like planting flowers we knew we couldn't sow, but he says why transplant the bulbs when we already know the soil is fertile and the climate is good and arable? and I have to think that maybe he's right. That maybe three years apart has made our thumbs a little greener. Touché

Like a worn blanket, a bad hand of cards, or flour into egg. I fold into you easily as if we belong under on top of all over one another. Fold

I flip through the yellowing pages of a paperback book by Steinbeck that cost someone 99¢ in 1981 and it dawns on me; I’m just like poor Lennie. I love too hard and watch it die and never, ever understand why. Of Mice and Men