200 Words
i have just two hundred words for you / and i will leave you with that / i want you to know you will always be my muse / the lover that makes me sing along to the early morning birds / the heartbreak that makes me speak with flowers wilting from my mouth / let the sonnets expose me / let them reveal the depths of my love / let them be a testament to how far i would crawl to the ends of the universe for you / you can ignore the haikus / i only gave my tears 17 syllables to fall anyway / my anthology is dedicated to our love / i use it to figure out when you went missing / maybe you can use it to retrace your steps back home / i’ll leave the light on / i’ll leave the door unlocked / you may have hurt me this time around / but i am an optimist / i like to think that in another lifetime / when both of our souls have learned / when both of our souls have loved and lost / we will find each other again and love each other the right way / whatever way that may be / and the flowers will grow / and the birds will sing
Places Where I Find You
You first appeared in a doorway
Holding it open,
With a kind smile and green eyes.
And at that moment, it was you.
Then I lost you when you quietly closed the door,
Took all of the love you held
And set it down under the mat.
But I still find you
In black and white box cars,
In driving manuals and personalized license plates,
In family stick figure decals on the rear window.
I find you in Paris, in Moscow, in Tokyo,
On the pages of red books and guitar tabs.
I find you in derivatives and Darwin,
In hand sanitizer and crooked desks.
I hear you in poorly spoken Spanish,
In open windows and politics.
I hear your laughter in Halloween costumes and graphic tees,
In school bells and video games.
And it is almost you.
I feel your arms in naps and dreams,
In cats and Frank Sinatra.
I feel the weight of you in the moon and Mars,
In the wee small hours, in New York City.
I see you on dewy February mornings,
On exercise bikes and chess boards.
I see you in backpacks too big for you,
In robots and coffee filters.
And it is almost you.
I find you in passersby in the hallway,
In baristas, blue shirts, and different guys.
One whose name rhymes with yours,
Who walks like you, talks like you.
I find you in a boy with the same birthday,
Who strums the same guitar as you,
Whose smile is just as kind,
But whose eyes are little less green,
And he is almost you.
Even in myself I find you,
In favorite TV shows and Frank Ocean,
In parking permits and piano melodies,
In lemons and rollercoasters.
I see mirages of you, visions of you
In all of my hypotheticals and what ifs.
This Frankenstein is never really you,
But he will always almost be
you.
And now I can’t help but hope
That I’ll find you again,
In another lifetime, in another universe,
In another doorway that you’re holding open.
And I can’t help but wonder
If there are places where you find me.
About the Author: Veronica Briones (she/her) is a third-year student at Arizona State University, pursuing degrees in Political Science and English. She is the current Interview Editor at Superstition Review and the Associate Literary Editor at Lux Creative Undergraduate Review. Briones enjoys exploring the world, life, and herself through written words and is mainly inspired by the works of T.S. Eliot, Mary Oliver, Richard Siken, Andrea Gibson, and Sarah Kay. She hopes to be able to connect with readers through writing about emotions that often makes us feel alone.
