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 Dec 2014 Beth Richter
i
my nicotine
 Dec 2014 Beth Richter
i
you are the smell after a
morning rain,

you are the blood rushing
through my veins.
 Dec 2014 Beth Richter
i
mesmerized.
 Dec 2014 Beth Richter
i
i wanna get lost in
your chocolate eyes,
and extinguish my hunger with
*your vanilla lips.
Skin as white as snow
Her heart, ice cold
Everyone looked at her in fear
She decided that she couldn’t stay here

Like the wind,
She fled
In the blizzard,
She disappeared

Everything she saw;
Everything she touched
Froze in its place
Glowed as she stayed

Each creation, different each time
Not one in itself was the same
All her creations were just like her:
A snowflake: just as unique.
Please don't look at me the way you do,
with those crystal blue eyes burning right through me.
Don't ask me about people I used to love
whenever we get drunk.

Please don't touch me when you lean close
with perfect hands that I don't think have ever harmed anything.
Don't express such tenderness to me
while thinking you were critical of yourself.

Please don't talk to me the way that you do
reminding me of the dreams that I left a long time ago.
Don't ever kiss me softly
and ask what it is that happened to me.

Please don't think that I might be the right man
for you, because I can't live up to that.
Don't let me start hoping
that meeting you wasn't an accident.

Please stop being the person I've not been looking for
and happened to stumble into.
Don't let me fall in love with you.
No
I wish that I could just be a normal kind of person,
I wish that I could just fall in love
and shrug it off if it falls through
could just have had a regular and everyday
kind of love that high school and college years
were meant for.

As much as I may wish it otherwise, I
must accept the foolish fact that I
am breaking without you.
My whole adult life,
I've been running into people
unexpectedly on street corners
and having somewhat profound
conversations in odd languages.

Consider the guy I spoke with in broke *** English
at the bus station in Jacksonville,
or the girl from Kiev I happened upon in
a very expensive gentleman's club in Seattle.

Herat was also a very strange place to find
oneself in, Dari and Pashto and Russian and God
knows what else might be run into.

The wonderful thing about all of the
ridiculous places I've found myself in at
one time or another over the very hungry years
is that no matter what language or background
we came from, if there was ***** we got along.
I'd like to tell a true story to you, dear readers. It's not exactly a nice story, but it's one I've only told to a few, so I think the time has come to make it public, especially since I know that the only person involved that would read it is me. This is a story that has changed my life, for good or ill, some experience that curdled my perception of how the world I live in works.

One night, years ago, I wound up at a house party in beautiful St. Augustine, and I was sober when I got there, very late, as I had promised to be the dd. But, we walked from the dorms back to Riberia Street, so I had no responsibilities once we got there. So, while drinking and partaking of other choice substances, I met the now famous Emily, she who I first started really writing for, she who set me free from some pointless idea of what was necessary. Dear God she had perfect *******, and could kiss like French writers wished their wives or lovers could kiss. I fell in love with her that night....and also was wounded at the same time.

Emily had three friends, a Latina from Miami called Natasha ironically, a White girl from up North named Lauren Ruotollo, and another chick from up that way who introduced herself as Kiki. I was in the middle of a conversation with Emily, when I had to ***. So, naturally I walked off the porch and did my business on the side of that house, and while standing there I looked to my left and saw a random dude shoving his thing into a girl's mouth propped against a tree. I thought nothing of it in that moment, and went back to talking to that perfect Emily.

What felt like hours or honestly was only minutes later, on the back porch with my tongue in Emily's mouth and my hand up her shirt, Natasha and Lauren found us; hunting for Kiki. I found her out back, not ten yards from where Emily and I were standing. She was the girl taking it hard from random *******, who left her with not even a thank you. Her skirt and ******* were racked up over her stomach, and when I picked her up, she coughed up *** all over my shirt. I carried her to Natasha's car and put her inside, yelling to God that He owed me one. Emily, Natasha, Lauren and Kiki then rolled off into the wee morning hours, and a little piece of my soul died.

I went back inside that house and couldn't find that empty *******. So I snorted an entire 8 ball and took off my *** covered shirt in the middle of Riberia and burned that ****** then and there.

So when you ask me why I have some problems that didn't come from the Army, I'll tell you this story.
How many?
How many dreams have died?
How many hopes have withered?
How many loves have faded?

How many futures have been shortened?
How many voices have been silenced?
How many friends have been lost?

How many shall have left us wanting?
How many shall have left us needing?
How many shall have left us empty?

Too many.
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