In the Unlikely Event

by L.J. Shen

Sometimes you meet people who are out of this world, so you make them a part of yours.

“I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.” —A.S. Byatt

The first flakes of snow fall around us. On my nose. Eyelashes. Shoulders. A storm is brewing inside my snow globe.

Weakness, hate, desire, How I’d love to light your soul on fire, In a room full of pretty lost girls and bad broken boys, You will find me, dip me in ice, and drown all the white noise, I want to see the world through your eyes and fall in love, But most of all, I am frightened you don’t really exist, Because then my fairytale has no beauty, Just a sad, lonely beast.

I feel like I’m suspended in the air, like a marionette. Between sky and earth. Nothing to lose, nothing to gain.

Whoever invented the phrase “out of sight, out of mind” evidently had the memory of a goldfish. “Out of sight, out of my fecking mind” sounds more fitting.

There’s a reason why fairytales end right after the prince saves the princess. No one likes to see her nursing postpartum depression and a drunken husband, all whilst folding the laundry.

“Rain or shine, snow or sun, you will always be the one…”

“Bells are ringing, choirs are singing, it must be Christmas Day…”

“Lovely as you are, we had to say goodbye, step away from the high, only to hit rock bottom…”

You were a beautiful mistake, but that doesn’t mean I don’t regret you.

Loving someone is willingly accepting that they can destroy you.

Love makes you do twisted things.

That’s what they don’t tell you in the movies. Bad guys have hearts, too.

They said that love was beautiful, I asked them if they were high, Because when you barged into my life, you made me taste the sky, But then you left me here, and the ashes on my tongue turned blue, Darlin’, what more can I say? It ain’t easy loving you. I know we said forever, a promise born a lie, Though I really want to do it the right way before I die. Marry me right, and true, and in all the colors you injected into my life. My Disney princess, my shiny savior, my sharp, bleeding knife.

I promise to be your shelter in the winter. To bask in you in the summer. To crash into love with you in spring like it’s the first time we’ve met. And when you fall? I promise to always pick you up.”