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I like the color of your sweater and the stripes on your sleeves and I especially like how the ends fray and the gray looks more like milk than it does a rainy day sky or a weatherbeaten road.

2. The reason I stepped back was not because you smelled funny, or that I was shocked to find you there, but because the air condition was hitting me right on the shoulders and I left my red sweater at home.

3. Okay, so maybe I was a bit shocked at finding you there; it’s just that you’re the first one who’s ever bothered lingering at the poetry section besides me, and I’m not good with surprises; in fact, I hate surprises.

4. But you’re a good kind of surprise.

5. I like your glasses. I used to have a pair just like them before someone removed them and told me that I should learn to see differently. Things have been kind of unclear since then, but I’m learning how to hold onto the side rails.

6. I hope you’ll let me remove yours, too.

7. Your hair looks like a bird’s nest. I wonder if you’re hiding life or pieces of green bottle in there. That’s a lovely shade of brown, by the way. I’ve never seen chocolate curls before.

8. Do you think that if a pine wants to, it will grow until its branches poke holes in the sky for stars and pinecones to fall out so we can catch them in our palms and compare who got the most scratches and who caught the most stardust?

9. The book you picked up happens to be my favorite. If you turn to page 118 you’ll find a poem about churning seas, angry thunderclouds, and a drifting boat that lost its sail.

10. I think I finally found my sail.
Audio here. https://soundcloud.com/sofiyichka/10-things-i-shouldve-said-to-the-boy-at-the-bookstore
 Dec 2013 Adam Burke
Lara Lewis
We were parodies of our parents,
Twisted mirror images,
Emulating something we can’t understand,
Trying to mimic something we haven’t seen.
Unsure of what we are, or were, or will become.
Control is the new black, painted on the walls in our love shack
That hasn’t had a visitor since this time last spring
Light filters through muggy dust, floating through the air like plankton in the sea,
And we were the whales, filtering through our mouths,
Unable to consume anything more substantive.
Our teeth fell out with old age,
But my face is still smooth.
We are green shoots, erupting with violence from the malnourished soils,
Desperate for a drop of sunlight,
Sweet relief.
Sweetest silence in another’s company,
Words were made to lie with,
Bodies are made to lie with,
As they huddle together to try to warm up,
But my hair is needles, and my arms are razor blades;
Steely coldness, severing all that tries to warm it up,
Stabbing what gets too close,
Feeling like you're quarantined.
The phoenix is reborn to be given the chance,
to be the man he thought he could never be,
But scrub and scald, the slate won't come clean,
The only escape is constant escape,
Never stop moving.
Venom leaks from my skin,
Bright colours warn predators,
While sweet sounds attract mates,
Aural honey sticks in the holes we put in my brain,
And for about three minutes and forty-seven seconds
Everything is about the vibrations.
As he goes to the washroom I sit and stare at my palms
I don’t know what to do
I almost pull out my phone to distract me from myself
Stop
I enjoy the silence
I allow the clinking of glass and chatter of folk to calm my restless heart
Something irritating
A laugh
Exploits of the night prior
My temperature rises  
I try and drown out the boisterous banter with my thoughts
How can people speak of such trivial things
Why am I plagued with pondering the contradictory nature of everything?
My mind
Wandering to those thoughts I suppressed long ago
Marinating in dreams unfulfilled and forgotten
He returns
I sigh and smile
I wish I could have thought a little longer
He talks
I laugh  
My desperate soul carries on
 Dec 2013 Adam Burke
Essie
Just Once
 Dec 2013 Adam Burke
Essie
It's in the tense stillness

The quiet.

The beating of my heart in my chest,

So shaky and shallow.



It's the fist in the air,

The blood on my lip,

A red river down my face.



It's the shattering of a heart

Of innocence,

A trampled flower.



It's the thought

That just once



I'd hit back.
In your metamorphosis I've found that you've been sifted straight to grounds
but to replace our A-B hits and fits and
midnight tricks followed by
cop car lights lit
is much like watering down
coffee
but I'll choose to take those sips so I take
one for the taste
one for the high
one for guilt free trips during 2nd period to the girls bathroom
and in three sips
I've fulfilled everything with innocence
but innocence doesn't leave a mark
and innocent
wasn't what you were
and being innocent can't tear down christmas lights on 53rd street at 3am for no other reason but to say we did and to say we did it together
but
who am I to disturb external forces
with my rhythmic manifestations to a personal God who only puts me in favor
when it's deserved
but is it my fault
for having tasted something that I swear only exists on some
uncharted astronomical coordinates and
is it my fault
for having tasted 1/4th cup rain water and 3/4ths cup regret
so is it my fault
for only asking for what makes the lady at the cafe counter cringe and
in your metamorphosis, I've found my own
and found it
slightly sweeter
slightly less drug induced
yet slightly less symmetrical to yours than I had hoped
and although I'll live without the hits and **** we did
just for kicks
it's hard to shed the addiction, of Americas favorite morning
fix.
I am an intersecting kaleidoscope of being
What lies beneath me may or may not be worth seeing
I find myself sleep walking in confusion
This unconscious static I feel is far from an illusion
Let's see deeply, so we can sweep out my brain
Cleanse my thoughts of discontent so clarity I hope to gain
They sky above us is telling us a story
We live on this earth and steal all its glory
We take what we want
Yet it's not our flaunt
We live our lives as if we have control
Tomorrow we'll see if we reap what we sow
How can it be that this life keeps on giving
We take it for granted
Yet it lets us keep living
This life that we have
This freedom we feel
All an illusion, yet the feelings so real
One day we'll wake and see what  we are
Little specs of dust, in this planet so far
So far from the heavens, yet so close to the hell's
Just open your eyes to these murderous tales
We cry ****** in horror, when we see all this violence
Take a look in the mirror, you'll be shocked into silence
The evil one not talked of, yet never quit realized
How close he can be...
When you look into your own eyes
look into my eyes and stare at them for a moment
and tell me a lie and hate me and keep pushing me,
keep pushing me down and just keep yelling at me with those
harsh words that you know will only hurt me
 Dec 2013 Adam Burke
Jaz
Perhaps I'm just mad,
Not at you, but rather
Myself.

Wondering why I stopped searching
Even though I knew you were like
A lost star in the galaxy,
Waiting to be found:
Glowing, glowing,
But slowly dying.

I searched, I did.
But I'm not as gifted in astronomy as you are.
I'm always a tad bit too late and

The stars are already dead.

Forgive me for the only language I ever speak in is
My tears.
The warm streams of
Half anger, half sadness,
Half anxiety — Oh goodness,
I've lost count.

I don't know.
I'm just lost again.
But this time they aren't here to help me.

And I'm really
Still

Alone.
Stop. Stop. There you go again.
Doing stupid little things that help nobody.
Especially not her.
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