i want to peel your skin back
and reveal your deepest sweetness.
to look at your veins
and memorize their paths.
maybe then i’d understand
why you are so rough on the outside.
it takes a lot of work,
digging your fingernails into the flesh,
pulling and pulling until you are bare.
but it is all worth it;
to visit your center,
to break past what conceals you,
and take you apart
slice by slice.

The summit looked so far away
We started walking anyway
Sometimes we spoke
Laughing and teasing
Sometimes we fell silent
Looking and listening
Sometimes we needed a brief rest
sip of cool water
granola snack pulled from a pack
Then back to the hike
Walking and walking
As the trail ascended
Navigating rocks and sand
One step and then another
Until we looked up and realized
We made it to the summit
The place where we started looked so far away
from the top where we now stood
Thrilled with ourselves and the view
Happy to have made it there, together
The land never looked so alive
the sky, so blue
As it did from that summit view.


© 2025 Joan Zaruba. All rights reserved.

The structures in the clouds.
Sky castles of tomorrow.
Kingdoms of the sky.  
Above world.

I walk the trails of Below world.
With serenity above.
The view of views.
Vaults of heavens and Cities of Arcadia.

I fish the ponds and brooks.
For a late dinner with her.
The evening skies bring the lights.
Hevenly lanterns of Above world.

We dine under the Sky Kingdoms.
As the evening gives way to the night.
The moons ride high.
One crescent and half full.

All is beautiful.

~
Where there used to be trees,
but is now a causeway
under the Lord's nose,
reside a constant tourist and his wife
who have all they ever wanted,
light and lure.

They swim in a pool
on the dangling homestar,
overlooking metal decay,
she pinches his cheek,
he smacks her bottom,
summer in Gotham
is now upon them,
gifting different things:
he sees mystery lights endeavor,
she sees herself a dragonfly
on the lure.

Monday thru Friday
they like to ride
the elevator of their love,
up and down it goes along a focal point,
out of him and into her,
when the door closes
they come together,
when the door opens
it lets in the tide of loneliness
and they begin to push buttons.

They dislike home
and its constant secrets,
what she wears is for him,
but less is more,
he invades her often,
but she's become a empty field,
theirs is Neptune's bedroom,
if they don't find
a reason to make love,
they will stay up all night
until irritable frozen creatures.

Invictus interruptus,
with the luck of the draw
they play dangerous days:
a game of blindfolds
and snowmobiles,
a game of hammers
and nails.

The plane of their lust
hunts the morning light
on gloomy Sunday,
the rain wets their hair,
the sidewalk creates a song:
electric skylark,
they dance out of focus,
he grasps her hips,
she makes a beautiful sound,
caught by magic,
trapped by photographic memory
and numbered doors.

Light and lure.
All anomalies.

Sublimation will not return
until the day of the focal point,
in the city where they have
all they ever wanted,
yet here they have nothing
more than microcosm,
the rest is distraction.

Maybe they should
remain a constant.

Maybe he should
just hold her.

Maybe she should
just let herself be held.
~

i lie facedown on the train tracks.
the gravel presses symbols into my skin,
but none of them translate.

home is a concept with too many rooms.
i sharpened my alibi
on my mother’s brittle bones
until it fit into a quieter mouth.
she didn't flinch.

the sun unthreads me one fiber at a time.
nothing resists.
blink
blink
blink
each time, the world returns
slightly rearranged—
trees on the ceiling,
windows in my stomach.

i found a way out,
but it only leads back here.
the platform loops
in the shape of an open jaw.
i circled it three times,
then laid down between its metal teeth—
the world doesn’t bite anymore.
it just holds me.

small, warm,
still breathing.
regret nests in the hinge of my jaw.
i keep it clenched, and
it doesn’t protest.
it flicks the lights off
when the rail begins to sing.
it knows the schedule better than i do.

the daylight plucks at my ribs like harp strings.
each note sounds like a name i was never meant to hold.
i buried the moon weeks ago.
she made it difficult to leave.
if you’re still listening—
the train is already halfway through me.

today,
i let the mouth stay open.
maybe the scream will crawl back in.
maybe it never left.

I don't tell you things
because explaining in length
things long brewing's like
standing at the floodgates of
a river as it empties

Rose. The most perfect rose
Stained the snow
Sinking into the grave
I never knew its name
And she never knew
Of my existence
God made her perfect
But that rose. So perfect. Stained the snow where we all walk.