Phantom Text
The first text read: Can’t wait to hurt you tonight.
Remi blinked. She knew Jesse meant see. He showed up later with takeout and his usual grin, no malice in sight. She laughed it off as autocorrect.
But then her mother: Hope you’re eating poorly.
Her best friend Sarah: Sorry I’m late, got stuck in traffic with my real best friend.
She started keeping screenshots. At first it was almost funny, until it wasn’t. The substitutions grew sharper.
An interview invite: We’d love to reject you for the position.
Her father, after years of silence: I never forgave you for what happened.
Sarah again: Can’t hang out tonight, I hate spending time with you.
And finally Jesse, the worst: Love you, hope you die soon.
She began replying to the poison. Confronting Jesse and accusing Sarah. They looked at her like she’d lost her mind. They swore their messages were normal and on their screens the words showed fine. Only hers came warped.
Her days twisted around it. She refreshed threads every hour, desperate to catch a message before it shifted. She deleted apps, reinstalled them, restarted her phone in the middle of the night. Once she even tried sleeping with the phone in the freezer thinking the cold would shock it honest. Each time, the words came back like bruises she gave herself.
Her phone vibrated. She almost didn’t look.
Jesse’s message glowed: Wish you were here with me.
The words finally held. But she still read them twice, convinced she’d missed the damage.
Even love, once certain, felt like a story she kept rereading into betrayal.
Stone
I sit high above the river
Please roll me down like a stone
Its the rushing of the water
That makes me feel not so alone
From the hilltop to the holler
From the grasslands to the sea
Why do we worship the dollar
And not the love betwixt you and me
They mark our graves when we go
Put a stone on our heads
This feels backwards to me
Rather become one instead
Yes its a place for mourning
Bow your head and say a prayer
But if i became a stone
You could grieve me anywhere
Im the shale by the roadsides
Im the rocks around the garden
Im never that far from you
And baby im just getting started
In the painted rocks the kids hide
And those polished in the 80s
Have you looked down when you leave the house
Cause thats where ive been lately
Im in the pebbles in your jewlery
And even the boulder that crushed my pap
You can find me anywhere babe
So please please please dont be sad
Even though my shapes changed
I am still delicate
One day we'll all be forgotten
And absorbed in the sediment
Streetlights flicker on again
And do i hear the dinner bell
Its the whistle of your mother
The one you knew so well
But theres a second noise and its not her
But its still your mother too
Mother nature’s shouting
Shes calling out to you
If i become a stone please
Will someone carry me
Far from where i laid down last
And toss me into the sea
Whether the waves take me
Or thrash me about the shore
I really want you to know that
You couldnt have helped me more
I join you on a picnic
To hold the corners of
The blanket that you brought with
To sit on with your new love
Collect me from the shoreline
And then whip me in the creek
You have to use the perfect angle
And count how many times you skipped me
In a quorum around stonehenge
And every block of the pyramids
You dont know how or why dear
All you know is that it is
Im the stone you played hopscotch with
And the rocks you threw at trains
Ill always be around you
My final form ive obtained
Im your moms old pet rock
And i decorate your hands
Im in every arrowhead
Of the owners of this land
Aztecs sacrificed on me
And now thats what i must do
Give myself to the earth
I remain to observe you
I was carved into the greatest art
But im also seen as trash
It may be all about perspective
Or its just about who you ask
