Things I Learned in the Night

by Emily Byrnes

karma isn’t magic, it’s the action of reaping what you sow.

And finally, how to tell when boys like you use sweet little lies like skeleton keys to get inside of girls like me when all we want is to be loved and feel special and not so very alone.

I outgrew you,

Rain pounds on the windows but I feel it in my bones like steel bullets knock-knock-knocking on my spine. It's almost fitting, like a movie, except there is no plane and you wouldn’t stop me from getting on it, anyway.

dark jeans on a hot summer day because I don’t like the color of my legs. Do you do it, too? Do you cloak your insecurities and hope they don’t show through?

For world peace, of course, for an island full of dogs, and for your voice to crack and burn like hot fire in your throat every time you speak my name. I want you to know how it feels to have my name seared on your tongue but not be able to do anything about it.

I've always loved order; schedules, plans, ducks in a row. But you are scattered all over like rainbow pieces of a kaleidoscope and I'm starting to think there's something to be said for chaos.

Clocks and calendars are for fools who think they have any control, so I just let time slip by and pretend everything was “just yesterday” so I don’t feel like I’m speeding toward the finish line, because who the hell knows where the finish line is, anyway.

And years later, Alice returned to Wonderland to find that nothing was quite the same. Because growing up and moving on can do that to a person.