When I try to hold on to a lovely present
its gift disappears.

****** Analysis
by Michael R. Burch

This is not what I need . . .
****-ysis,
paralysis,
as though I were a seed
to be planted,
supported
with a stick and some string
until I emerge.
Your words
are not water. I need something
more nourishing,
like cherishing,
something essential, like love
so that when I climb
out of the lime
and the mulch. When I shove
myself up
from the muck . . .
we can ****.

Originally published by Unlikely Stories. Keywords/Tags: analysis, paralysis, psychoanalysis, words, nourishing, cherishing, essential, love, muck, ****, ***

I think we were in high school, a little more than children when you said you love me.

We're almost real men here, we're "sentimental boys."

I promised I wouldn't let myself be the victim, but when your eyes sparkle in Christmas lights, and you don't eat for days, and you live recklessly in a cruel world, you will experience pity

a little more than sorrow.

Someone said you were sincere and I didn't argue,
because even though you lied to them, you were real to me,
and if I poison that now it kills the nostalgia
for a time I was looked after and not for.
Cared and not sought.

Slightly more than children.