Once upon a time, I started telling you stories. Brief ones with a predictable ending, elaborate grand ones with meek endings, love stories masked beneath animals and fairies, stories of you and me. I narrated the epics; remember the grasshopper and the bumble bee that finally made it through? Remember their happily-ever-after?

These happily-ever-afters' worry me. It is a three word cluster. All three word clusters worry me. They contain just enough space to shake and uproot permanence. They contain just enough syllables to alter our biological compositions. They bury themselves in spaces between blankets and throw the wind out to disturb the layers of dust we wait under. These three word clusters; they make me shudder.

This June was a fugue of stories. The little ones still sigh in my palm, the grand ones flutter around in their conceit. I keep trying to tether them down, wondering if they will gasp in your voice when I squeeze them between my fingers. Inside these thoughts, inside this June of stories, I burn.

On the eve of July, I wonder if June will come back; if she will run back to us like a child with open arms. I wonder if she will sit on each of our arms and tell us our stories again. What if she offers the grand ones to you, all held together by a single string? Would you keep them? Or would you smile and slip them into my hands? The stories are but children themselves, and they want three word clusters for dessert. I grow old by the hour, and my layer of dust seems to be withering. I cannot hide anymore.

You keep asking me where I often wander away. I never find the courage to tell you that I wander into you, straight deep down into your nerve endings, following your lost impulses into your blood stream, hoping to revive them. I can never wander away; I simply wander further into you. This June of stories holds our three word cluster and she is dying of hunger and silence.

Where are you wandering now?