Quite,

This is a greeting.

This is the hello spoken between the title page and "chapter 1."

This is the real El Dorado and this is the pyrite on your bedside table.

This is an old man yelling at you to get off his lawn and this is the smell of the cookies his late wife used to bake.

This is the promise that nothing will change and this is the certainty that nothing is static.

This is the balloon blanket you carried around for years and this is the day you realized you had lost it.

This is your mother kissing your newly bandaged knee and this is the lifeguard blowing the whistle at you for splashing.

This is a rogue planet and this is a strawberry patch.

This is a visit to the dentist's office and this is the reason you don't like the right side of your face.

This is empathy and this is apathy.

This is the ring on a seventeen-year-old finger and the wedding dress with room for the baby and this is a Facebook status three months later about the husband's creepy inmates.

This is a motif of birds and this is a cliché called "the whispering wind."

This is the broken bone in PE class and this is the line between "friends" and "more than."

This is the wall you built around your happiness and this is the tunnel it dug to free itself when it heard you crying.

This is this is the scar on your knee from shaving and this is the laugh lines your mother is starting to get.

This is a refrigerator magnet and this is the ice cream melting when the power is out.

This is a wish upon a star and this is the star's mother asking him to come home for Christmas.

This is a knife in the toaster and this is the feeling of her hand in his.

This is a pair of sweatpants and this is a girl who doesn't wear heels below three inches.

This is a word and this is a warning.

This is a poem and this is a broken bottle in a high school parking lot.

This is a question asked and this is a teacher who doesn't like being interrupted.

This is the uncertainty in your eyebrows and this is the swear words you no longer notice you say.

This is a plastic bag in the breeze and this is the ground view of the Eiffel Tower.

This is a birthday the day of graduation and this is the relapse that made his mother cry.

This is a religion and this is a mythology.

This is your heart and this is your left lung.

This is your appendix and this is every organ that actually does something.

This is an interpretation and this is a reality TV show.

This is confusion and this is the curiosity that killed the cat.

This is the boy who forgot about alliteration and this is his brother who can't spell onomatopoeia.

This is a rock star and this is a local radio station.

This is your green eyed family and this is your genetic difference.

This is a one word answer and this is the draft you had saved as "like srsly wat."

This is the scar on your elbow and this is the chip in your tooth.

This is the shirt that fell on the ground in the back of your closet and this is the skirt that your mom bought you that you've worn once.

This is more than a dream and this is less than a nightmare.

This is the lighter fluid you used to start the fire and this is the burning newspaper you can't look away from.

This is your conscience questioning your motives and this is your muscles remembering how to speak and walk and run and dance and breathe and blink and smile and cry.

This is your reason for getting up and this is the reason you can't fall asleep at night.

This is a first impression and this is a closed-casket service.

This is the broken front door latch and this is the spider you asked your father to kill.

This is your heart written on the back of a scan tron and this is a question asked to the callous your pen made.

This is the neighbor's fence and this is a "beware of dog" sign.

This is saying harmless and this is saying "innocent enough."

This is a lie and this is the red leaves falling.

This is everything you deserve and this is nothing you've wished for when the time is all 1's.

This is a coil of wire and this is the smell of the mulch your father and brother spread yesterday.

This is exact and this is estimation.

This is the journey and this is the name of the infinity symbol.

This is an ampersand and this is everyone who didn't know what an ampersand was.

This is all you want it to be and this is more than you told your mother about.

This is the inside of your soul

And this:

This is a goodbye.

--Erin