One Last Thing - Haley Nicole

I never had the chance to thank you

for those evenings of burnt

orange skies, faces lapped

by siren-calling waves,

For those evenings filled

with songs of soldiers

kissing their loved ones

for the first time.

The sheets that entangled

our woven bodies

a secret shared

through the whisper

of your name on my lips—

Hush, you’d say to me.

So I kept to writing letters

I kept to star-crossed skies

where I’d paint the polaroid

of the places we sanctified,

But the colors never developed

and my paintings started to

smear with distant echoes—

Hush, you’d say to me.

Claiming trophies of conquest

while you sleep peacefully

at night holding onto what

you have stolen from me.

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Haley Nicole is currently a graduate student in Manhattanville College's MFA Creative Writing program focusing on fiction writing. She recently graduated from the University of Connecticut with a Master of Art in Curriculum & Instruction, a Bachelor of Art in English, and Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education. Her flash fiction piece, Robin Eggs, has been recently accepted by Passengers Journal and will be published in their Volume 1 Issue 3 publication. The stories Haley wants to write are the ones that need to be told. Drawing inspiration from her own personal life, Haley hopes that through her writing readers will also gain the courage and the strength to one day tell their own stories.