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fugue
six years ago, i was a pure creative force. everything was a metaphor. everything meant something. i lived every moment, and then i wrote it all down. now i just feel out of place holding a glass of champagne and trying to make small talk with coworkers. i drift off mid-conversation and remember what it's like to feel alive. laying next to you on the hospital hill slide, heart beating so loudly i thought you might be able to hear it through my chest. the way i felt in the ich
Aja Sun Houlton
Aug 27
looking over the edge of a cliff
on my 6am drive to work, i pull up next to a white truck at the stoplight and for a moment, i think it's you in the driver's seat. remember that time my car wouldn't start and you gave me the keys to your truck? told me to take it home on the snowy roads and to pick you back up in 12 hours. i just stood there, clutching that keychain to my chest, thinking about how everything would be different if i had met you two years prior. now i see your life through pictures and wonder
Aja Sun Houlton
Aug 23
do you think of me?
i still feel this inexplicable gravitational pull towards you. it's like my head has forgotten that it's August, but my heart remembers. the last time i saw you i mean, really saw you, with no witnesses forcing us to make small talk, we sat on a rock in the middle of the creek at the park by your house, and i knew that we would never end up together. i was 20 years old. brimming with hope that maybe this was finally our chance. but we didn't say anything about the previous de
Aja Sun Houlton
Aug 14
Delicate
It's a Sunday morning and I'm falling through the cracks in the sidewalk. Thinking about all that we've been through. Wondering if we'll ever get it right. The whole time we were together, I couldn't write about us. There was something about us that always felt too fragile—too ethereal—too delicate to put into words. But I left and you let me, and now the words won't stop pouring out of my fingertips. I loved you. And sometimes you loved me too. For months I survived on your
Aja Sun Houlton
Nov 17, 2025
the passing of time is felt
i keep thinking, this has been the fastest year of my life. four months ago, i was getting married. now i'm on an airplane flying across the pacific. now Atlas is dead. _______ i was halfway around the world when i facetimed my dog for the last time. it was 9pm in indonesia, but early morning in kentucky. i could barely choke out the words. i told my parents, don't cry until after they put him down. i told them, he gets anxious when people cry. i know this because i cried a l
Aja Sun Houlton
Nov 11, 2025
back in my body
when i am on the brink of a panic attack, when that familiar feeling begins to build in my body, my therapist tells me to visualize a...
Aja Sun Houlton
May 23, 2025
so many ways of saying goodbye
flew to Illinois for my grandmother's memorial, just one year after my grandfather's service. they had been married 74 years. they say...
Aja Sun Houlton
Mar 12, 2025
you, me, our cat & a slow life
in my dreams, you are a tree and i am a tree, and we send each other secret messages through our root system. deeply connected for...
Aja Sun Houlton
Dec 10, 2024
wish i could write about something other than death
i get in the car to go home and collapse. it rains and it feels like the world is crying with me too. we sit down to eat dinner at 9:00...
Aja Sun Houlton
Mar 4, 2024
seven
it's the way we idolize things only after they're gone, the way we grieve deeper than we love. childhood ends slowly, and then all at...
Aja Sun Houlton
Jun 18, 2022
continuum
the morning light wraps us in tenderness, its dusty warmth filling the room. i squint out the window and watch the street cat circle the...
Aja Sun Houlton
Aug 22, 2021
the ache of becoming
we pull into a gravel parking lot in the middle of Tennessee and watch the sunset. everything a hazy glow. i hear the universe sigh. the...
Aja Sun Houlton
May 27, 2021
Sundreams
i open my eyes and tenderness rushes in. in the early glow of the morning i lay in your bed with my hair sprawled out and watch the...
Aja Sun Houlton
Apr 20, 2021
Freefalling
I look up and suddenly it's winter. It's getting dark at 4:30 pm and the Christmas lights are twinkling in the square and I'm filled with...
Aja Sun Houlton
Dec 31, 2020
Someday I'll Tell You About December
I. How do I make sense of all this? Is it strange that I can only write about it now that it's over? II. We spent most of our nights...
Aja Sun Houlton
Dec 29, 2020
Fool's Gold
I've got it figured out: Love. Love is the train that’s traveling east when I’m headed west and I can feel it roar in the steel railings...
Aja Sun Houlton
Nov 19, 2020
Metamorphosis
1. I feel like an open wound. Does that mean I still need to heal? 2. I have all this love and nowhere to put it. 3. I've read my...
Aja Sun Houlton
Nov 19, 2020
Wild, Wonderful Things
It's November 4th again. Except this time, I'm 21. And I'm searching for something profound to say — something important — but there's...
Aja Sun Houlton
Nov 5, 2020
A Holy Kind of Happiness
Everything is changing and I am too. The weather is getting colder and this is the part that I dread — except this year, I don't. This...
Aja Sun Houlton
Oct 8, 2020
Yellow
The sunset tonight made me think of you. It was hazy and soft. It's September now, and you're off producing another song about an...
Aja Sun Houlton
Sep 17, 2020
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