I can count in my mother's voice how many times I was told not to turn my face to the sun. I was warned not to love you. When you tell a girl to close her eyes, she keeps them open. Girls are curious cats. Girls only listen to their mothers later on in life. I remember the hornets nest in my chest when I found out why I was told to be careful about who I loved. Warned by my sisters. Careful keepers, held secrets to the future with their past, and somehow even with all my wonder, I couldn’t hear them. You have a mean dad and a dog that keeps running away and a house that’s never quite home and your whole life you put on different outfits to be a different you and none of it ever fits. And it goes on with plans and places and apartment keys that get stuck and mail that won’t send and then you find a boy like a man with kinks in his hair and you think you can leash him up. There’s a raven’s nest outside the window of a corner unit and you’re the only girl in the world who got out and left. There are cranapple berries in the street and you trip on mom's thanksgiving, even after you stop visiting. You try to unclutter the busy things that somehow manage to stick through all the time and growth, but you can’t unpack the boxes of things that made you who you’re supposed to be. You click your boots to try to get back, but there’s nowhere to get back to. You took to a man with kinks in his hair and kinks in his heart who had a mouth that reminded you of being a kid and a body that showed you how to be grown and you burn down all the empty buildings in your soul to make space for him and still somehow you’re alone. A western movie your dad watched plays in your head: smoke blowing, hands tilted, tumbleweeds of forgotten things rolling. There’s a whistle in your chest from the wind only you can hear. He stops loving you and his hairs are in the tub and his bones are packed in a bag by the bed and the keys stop turning and you forgot the mirrors aren’t two ways and no one who loves you can see how your life really looks. You can’t resprout the flowers he gave you, or ask your mom for the seasons back or turn into yourself the way you should have before you were bruised and you can’t look at the sky anymore because now it’s the sky without someone you loved. There’s a stop button broken and somewhere the sun’s laughing cause life’s all going on without you and you have to stay anyway. Addily Dyer is sharing a few scattered poems that make up the story of love and loss. This is her first time being published, but she has shared her words through many post stamped letters, late night phone calls, and shaky poetry readings with strangers. She has moved from city to city, lover to lover, job to job, with one remaining constant—writing. She has recently returned to Portland, Oregon to visit with old friends and to be comforted by familiar places. While she has warmth for the Midwest, East Coast and every place further and in between; she seems to always return to Portland. Perhaps it is the place where she has loved and lost the most. She would like to be known for her tenderness and nostalgia; for the way she always remembers the sweet, even when it was bitter