For a brief moment, he hoped, he prayed that his suspicion turn out false. Only to in the next second, hope and pray that it be confirmed.
He stared hard, his heart beating hard enough to burst, and his mind reeling enough to send him into a coma. And then she turned, deep green eyes immediately burning down the defenses he'd set around his heart just for this moment.
                    
                   It'd been years since he last saw her, and longer still since he'd last heard her voice, since her beautiful visage had graced his eyes. And now the unexpected occurred, and only one thing was in his mind. Almost running, he leapt from his seat and to her, grabbing her arms as though she'd spectre away if he didn't hold her securely, and in that single space of time, and a million years passed.

                     “Hi,” she said, in that special soft voice. The single syllable word was more a breath than a whisper. They both knew that no words could ever express the emotions that each felt, and her jade irises flicked back and forth between his hazel's that burned so intensely into her own. Her greeting had only started the avalanche of freed memories that would flash like bursts of lightning across their mind's eye and after the minute that felt more like a millenia, she suddenly, almost shyly leaned forwards. It took only an instant his lips locked with hers. They used action in the stead of words, and the action matched perfectly what was happening in their hearts. They intertwined, arms finding their proper places, hers around his neck pulling his face down to and against her, and his around her lower waist, pulling her soft yet tight body up against his own so that they were flush and seemed one mass.

            He pulled away and looked into her eyes only to find that she had begun fading into times past. He fell to his knees, reaching for her only to have her move back away from him like the alike ends of a magnet. It was too much for his mind to handle and with a gasp that could push back the darkness of the long winter night he awoke, tears glistening in his eyes and refusing to drop.

new beginnings. correct beginnings. things that were supposed to end. a perfect last sentence, a book with no desire to be reread. reshoveling snow off my driveway, rewinding to the time and place it fell from the sky, lighter than rain and about as heavy as your heart.

honesty.

for when shovels give way to snow plows. for when it all freezes over. for when it thaws, and then begins to decay. for when the flowers grow in the sidewalk cracks, the ones that no one bothered to mend. for spring. for that color red, the most accurate one there is. the one you can hear. the one that only shows up in sunsets and tubes of paint. for the day you fell out of love with her.

The misty sprites in speckled shadows
dance among the ferns on the forest floor.
Hemlock and western red cedar giants
tower above the fungus jungle on the rotting leaves.
The sun alters the smell of rain,
and a light wind coaxes the wet from the branches.
I think as quietly as I can
because I am an intruder.

[A prose poem]

I look at this candle and think of heat. Small ones, like these.
       You burnt a mouse when you were young. It screamed and screamed, you said. It screamed until it stopped.
       And so you inch away from little heats, like these. Candle lit evenings are not your thing. Little flames are not for warmth, but for the vague memory of a distant sin.
Here, take a seat.
       I know you'll want to run away, where the screams can weigh heavy without the watch of– well, me.
       I don't know how much smoke you've breathed in, or how your little hands and feet will fare trying to reach for clean air, for the life you want to set ablaze in anywhere but yourself. I don't know how you're planning to use burnt out matches.
      The mouse is gone. He's gone, he is. Listen to me.
      There is no greater scream than the past's flames. It doesn't matter how much I say I love you. In the end, I can't set ablaze a lump of ashes. And you can't just "love yourself" either– that won't help you, see?
       Roll your eyes; glare at me. But if you don't let Him give you new matches, you won't be able to set hearts ablaze in the midst of more screams.

[A prose poem.]

I see you’ve got the ropes.
       Somehow you adapted. There, your green tea; you filled your thermos last night, preemptively. Your fingers have always been awkward too. You treat your hands as if they were chubby. And they hold the thermos with strength, like they hold everything-- except for your papers and your keyboard. You hold those differently.  
       Remember the balcony? You had too much wine, obviously. Your rolling on the floor from one end to the other turned legendary. But time rolls by, and so do tobacco leaves on papers, and you hate those two things.
       Listen, I’m not the same. I’m sorry. I now have posters on the walls of my room. And I still pick pieces off my lip, but I wear chapstick too. And I’ve started to drink coffee again, with sugar. I’ve made peace with mirrors. And I’ve also started to learn some french, Je m’excuse.
       What page number were we in? I’ve known you through some invincible years, but I’m starting to see the fray.
       You forgot to take the balcony along. You’ve got the hang of your schedule, where and how to tunnel your way to class; you get up as soon as our alarm goes off. No snooze. You sit down and vaguely remember the journals you wasted your soul in; all the conversations tinted with beer were drowned by fear, and fear by coping, and your coping is scaring me. The ropes are gripped tightly by your fingers, and I might know why.
       And I’m already mourning; I don’t need any more black clothes, any more sad entries. Know that I still love you-- that’s still the same. But, here, I am this. It hurts to know that is not okay, that at the bottom of our wine bottles there’ll be resentments, but I still love you all the same. I’d rather taste your rancour than bittersweet memories, wondering how I’d give you tulips, if you really want to be cremated.
       Maybe we’re tying knots on the veins of a good life– and what for?– the classic problem is, perhaps we’re still ‘too young.’ We lost the children we used to be, but we’re in that grey area between losing and finding something to find.  
       And I’m already missing you. And maybe there’s no point in begging, but,
I see you’ve got the ropes and I’m terrified.
Please,
stay with me.

Are you feeling caterpillars in your stomach?
Will you give me a wedge of religion to chew on?
Is it possible, two weeks after moving in
to a third-floor apartment on the outskirts of town
I’ll discover hairs in the sink
like skinny black maggots,
wounds on the couch from a spilt glass of red?
Are you going to comment on my skin,
am I going to do the same to you?
Will we share baths together,
watch our fingers wrinkle
as we volley stories to each other
like we did when we met?
Or maybe you’ll thwack me with a pillow
if I begin to snore or drool,
maybe I’ll crank my voice up a notch
if you whine about work
and we’ll sit in different seats
with the TV turned down.
Will I be just too boring? Is that it?
The whiff of my aftershave,
the shriek of my knife against
the plates we’ll buy from IKEA,
all those things will bring about a moan.
Am I going to have to dine on politics?
Would you hate it if I checked the scores on my phone?
The *** might be so disappointing
we won’t even bother to undress anymore.
We are thinking the same thoughts here,
we must be.
Are we doing the right thing, darling?
Will it ever be time for the right thing?

The snow comes.

White apostrophes
glide to the ground.

Footprints sleep
outside homes,

along paths
glazed with cold.

Our cheeks
bloom strawberry,

our breath whispers
into the night
and kissing you

is like handling ice.
Our frosted lips

melt together.

Sometimes, when the world is still
I find faces in the tile cracks
of the bathroom floor

Tainted with age and despair,
they are trapped where ceramic
meets skin

It is with them that I worry,
crushed like expired cherry blossom petals
that litter the streets of early summer

It is with them that I sigh
for freedom,
Maybe we have time
but it does not
have us.

I found peace atop a Ferris wheel
wedged in the space between our fingers