Tick...tock
Tick tock goes the clock
Waiting for you to call, but you don't 
You're waiting for me to budge
But I won't
Or I will
I don't know
It's getting late
It's been months since we last spoke
And I'm not sure when we'll speak again
Every day I try to forget
But each time I remember you more
My life has been well
I travel; I eat; I have fun with friends
I rang in the New Year with loads of cheer
And I'll be dating again soon
But I still think of you
Maybe one day our thoughts will connect in space
Cuz it ain't happening here on Earth
Either way, floaters of you remind me of so much
Like the pink shirt you gave me
I wore it, haha
As I was writing about our time together
It was awesome!
Life is awesome!
Tick tock, it's getting late
I'm not sure what time it is yet
But either way, be free
And have fun
Life is great
Life is awesome
And I am happy for having given myself to you 

You might not understand Portuguese, but this song is it for me. Its mellowness, its softness, its realness, her voice. It's romance and nostalgia and basically saying, "I'm going to let life guide me, but in the process, I will remember you." Obrigado Seu Jorge e Ana Carolina. 

Lyrics from: https://analisedeletras.com.br/ana-carolina/pra-rua-me-levar/​ (reproduced below) 

Pra Lua Me Levar

Não vou viver como alguém que só espera um novo amor
Há outras coisas no caminho aonde eu vou
As vezes ando só, trocando passos com a solidão
Momentos que são meus e que não abro mão

Já sei olhar o rio por onde a vida passa
Sem me precipitar e nem perder a hora
Escuto no silêncio que há em mim e basta
Outro tempo começou pra mim agora

Vou deixar a rua me levar
Ver a cidade se acender
A lua vai banhar esse lugar
E eu vou lembrar você
(2x)

É… mas tenho ainda muita coisa pra arrumar
Promessas que me fiz e que ainda não cumpri
Palavras me aguardam o tempo exato pra falar
Coisas minhas, talvez você nem queira ouvir

Já sei olhar o rio por onde a vida passa
Sem me precipitar e nem perder a hora
Escuto no silêncio que há em mim e basta
Outro tempo começou pra mim agora
​
Vou deixar a rua me levar
Ver a cidade se acender
A lua vai banhar esse lugar
E eu vou lembrar você…
(2x)

If I’m honest with myself, I never want to stop talking to you, ever. I was just that happy with you.  But circumstances required us to part, and while I know I can still call you, I decide against it, because I don’t want to look desperate, and plus, why – after I’ve said “goodbye” to you multiple times now?  I guess I feel like I should have it figured out – whether this goodbye is final or not.  So far, it has been in a way.  And while I know that you will continue to live your life, I hope you are happy, and that you never forget me.  And I hope you remember all the times that you made me laugh.  Maybe we weren’t going to last forever, but I would’ve held on just a little bit tighter.  But I think my heart told me to tell you: “No, I can’t hold on any longer.”  Maybe it was for a reason that I don’t quite understand, but I want you to know that not a day goes by when I don’t think of you. And I want you to know that that’s the truth.  

I love you.  Thank you for being there for me.  I know I meant a lot to you too.  When we last spoke, the sun was setting, and since then, it has actually set on our relationship.  I said goodbye to you many times and in many places, but I want you to know that I still hope for a sunrise.  Maybe the trick is, we don’t know when it will be.  Maybe it will never be, except when we contemplate what could have been.  Either way, for a while, you were the man of my dreams, and in my heart, the sun will always rise with you.  Goodbye, for now, and be well.  I love you.

One night, I went to my high school reunion and ran into an old friend.  We used to sit at the same table in our 7th grade English/Reading class (my school was grades 7-12, hence why we were at our high school reunion ;-)).  To be honest, this friend and I mostly only talked during our English class and we never really hung out with each other outside of class.  But when we saw each other at our reunion, there was so much love.  We chatted for a brief second, and then we shook hands to say goodbye.  There were crowds of people around us, and we were actually in a night club (yes, our school used a club as a reunion spot, lol).  He walked past me, but for some reason, neither of us let go of each other’s hand. I never turned to face him, so I can only assume that both of us had our backs to each other. I imagine that his body was probably already lost in the crowd while he was still holding onto my hand.  We held on for what felt like minutes, but it was probably only a few seconds.  I felt everything in those seconds - but most importantly, it felt like we were both saying: here’s to the connection that we had before we let go and say goodbye.  And then, we dropped hands.  And that was our goodbye.  That was several years ago, and I haven’t seen him since.

You called so we could catch up
You asked how I was doing, given the death of my father
I thought I was fine, so I said so
But I have not been able to feel fine since then

​Was waiting for her, but her mind kept pushing and pushing hard against it
She fought for years against people seeing her naked
And when she finally let him in
Her hopes vanished when she realized that he was no longer in it like she thought he was
Like she started to become
Honey oozing slowly from the butterfly’s lips
Let me kiss you before I scream
And wake up from this dream
One day she will have it
Love in its purest form
But for now she works on perfecting her craft
Creating art for the soul, art that feeds hers
Because with it, through it, and by it
She will fall fast, and hard, and find it
And never let it go
Whatever that is meant to be hers
She will love fluidly and fearlessly
And never regret it 

Cheryl lifted her hand to caress his face. His irises glowed like Yemaya.  “Goodbye,” she said. “Goodbye,” he responded. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” she continued. “I know,” said Robert, smiling. “I know.”
 
Cheryl turned to leave. She walked towards her cab and turned around once more. “Bye Robert,” she waved before getting inside. Robert stood and watched her leave from his doorstep. She was moving across the ocean like she’d always wanted. He loved that she was so determined to build the future that she’d been craving. Once upon a time, he had felt the same way about traveling. But he was settled now, and he hated the idea of starting over anywhere. Plus, he was determined to start a family with the One, whomever that would be. Cheryl was leaving behind six years of their friendship, of their phone calls, of their dinners together on patio terraces. Sometimes in April, Cheryl thought to herself as she settled into her cab, winter comes.    
                                           
Robert stood in the doorway of his house as her scent drifted farther and farther away. He turned to walk through his living room and into the backyard. He would plant a new garden that day, he decided. He looked up at the clear blue sky and saw two birds flying overhead. I love the spring, he told himself. He started laying down seeds. His backyard was already awash with budding green leaves and colorful rose buds. The sound of the cab’s engine continued to trail off in the distance. Sometimes in April, was his new favorite thought. Sometimes in April, he continued to think, summer feels like it’s here. That day was Robert’s last day of rehab, where he had been for months. Cheryl had visited him every day and their friendship is what saw him through.  They had been through laughter and many tears together. She had fed him when he couldn’t eat and made him cool compresses when he was too sick to get out of bed. He knelt down on the ground in his yard and began parting the soil and planting seeds, one by one. The birds he had originally seen continued flying overhead. The sound of the cab’s engine had definitively faded from his street. He knew that wherever she was, Cheryl would have what Robert could not give her. Both of them knew that a future together was unlikely, but their past had been filled with so many happy memories that neither of them would forget. 
 
The cab made its way to the airport as the raindrops on Cheryl’s window began washing away the tears from the faces of the passing houses. Some six plus hours later, Cheryl landed at Aéroport Charles de Gaulle in Paris. When she exited, she hailed a cab with an illuminated taxi sign on top of the car. The air outside was crisp and cool. “Bonsoir, Avenue de la Porte d’Orléans, s’il vous plaît,” she said to the driver, as she opened the back door. Out of nowhere, she heard loud squawks overhead and looked up. She saw two large birds flying high in the sky, first side by side and then chasing one another. “Ha,” Cheryl remarked out loud, before entering the cab. The cab driver took her luggage and placed it in the trunk. Cheryl bundled her jacket tighter before hopping inside. The car took off down the gray cobblestone streets that were lined with café terraces and budding branches of green. Cheryl wasn’t exactly sure where she was headed – believe it or not, she still needed to find an Airbnb – but she knew that she was headed to where she was meant to be. The two birds followed, all the while chasing each other, as the cab carried Cheryl to her destination.
 
The two birds continued to fly and dance in the air. It seemed as if their dance involved following the cab as it made its way through the city of lights. 
 
Back in his yard, dusk had fallen and the wind had picked up. Robert had finished planting for the day and came back inside, where he started a fire. He was really looking forward to tomorrow because a new day would come. He was finally going on a date with someone new. He took comfort in the fact that Cheryl was going to live the life that she’d always wanted in Paris. The street lights shone bright in their respective cities on either side of the Atlantic. Tomorrow would be a new day for both of them. 
​
Sandra closed the book as she finished reading it to her daughter, who had fallen asleep. The buzzing of motorbikes grew loud and faint in a continuous cycle outside her daughter’s bedroom window that overlooked the busy Parisian street. “Legend says,” Sandra said to her sleeping daughter in French, “that one of the birds died of heartache after losing sight of the bird it was following and never finding it. But others say that that’s just an old wives’ tale. It seems that in the end, no one will ever really know.”
 
Sandra turned off the lights. And with that, she, too, went to sleep for the evening.  

She wanted so desperately to feel special, so she kept telling herself that she was every beautiful butterfly she’d see flying around.  She wanted to make meaning out of everything, because she wanted to erase the times from her past when she felt like nothing.  A stranger would smile and she thought that it meant true love.  A friend would pout and she thought that she had done something wrong.  She was always interpreting things in extremes, because things had to be either good or bad; she did not know how to make sense of everything that fell in the middle.  You can imagine her surprise when she learned that life was all about living in the middle: that she’d meet great people who would also make her mad, and that some douche bags would also prove to her that they had hearts (she still avoided douche bags though).  She eventually learned to take everything with a grain of salt, even her good feelings and bad feelings.  See, throughout her entire life she had only been searching for butterflies.  But through her growth and acceptance of things for what they were, she’d come to learn that the caterpillars that became butterflies were just as worthy of being adored.  She’d come to accept herself and all her imperfections, all her flaws and rough edges that had yet to be rounded out.  She accepted that beauty was all about how she interpreted her experiences and the images that were emblazoned in her mind, and that none of her experiences, whether good or bad, would last forever.  And that is how she came to see that she was a butterfly in her own eyes. 

​She stood at the edge of the lake, staring down at her reflection.  She was beautiful.  The lake’s ripples sparkled in the darkening dusk.  The smell of pine filled the air.  She felt serene and one with the trees.  Her left foot continued to dangle over the edge of the lake.  She stood tall and slender, her back leg extended as a ballerina does when preparing to leap.  Her blue and white flowery dress flowed down around her ankles.  Purple and pink painted the sky.    
 
As she continued looking down at her reflection, she noticed the pine trees peaking up behind her head in the water, forming a crown.  She thought that was funny, and let out a chuckle that echoed in the trees.  Then slowly, she began falling forward, as if in a trance.  Her body entered the water quietly, lean like a log.  Within seconds, she was completely submerged.  There, she stayed, never to return.