I ache for the curve of your lips,
the secret valleys where your whispers rest,
the gentle storm of your breath
against the quiet hunger of my own.

In the trembling air, I find
the ghost of your fingers weaving through mine,
their warmth a fragile truth
that lingers in the hollows of my palm.

Your body, once a map I learned by heart,
now drifts like a dream behind a veil.
I long to cross the distance,
to find your skin beneath the moonlight,
to trace the constellations of us
once more into the quiet rhythms of night.

Each moment apart is a wound,
an echo of love that fills my chest
until it spills into the open,
a river that cries your name
with every pulse of the tide.

Oh, let me fall into you again,
into the world we made
in stolen hours and hushed embraces.
Let my lips find yours
as if the universe depends on their meeting,
as if time itself stops to listen
to the story only we can tell.

the nights are longer now,
even though the clock says they’re the same.
the air feels heavier,
like it knows I’m here
alone.

there’s a hole where her laugh used to be,
where her smell lingered on my shirt,
and where her voice
turned this place
into something that felt
alive.

I reach for her in the dark,
not to find her—
I know she’s not there—
but to remind myself
I ever held her at all.

In her gauzy garments
Above the bowing trees
The moon has many lovers
In the sighing breeze.

They all take her dancing
In exotic lands
They give her sparkling diamonds
They kiss her milk-white hands.

She is round & fullsome
Or slender as a waif
When she is then waning
Her flowers are kept safe.

Silken skeins of darkness
When she's waxing full
Are parted by her brightness
She is NEVER dull!

Her beaux are all so courtly
But she eschews them all
Her only love can make her pale
She burns at his call...

She lets out her moonbeams
Through her eyes they weep
She loves the one eclipsing her
They can NEVER meet!

She, so strong within her court
Will curtsey when he comes
The moon has many lovers

But she's taken by the SUN.


Catherine Jarvis
(C) 12/14/2019

we burned like cheap whiskey,
sharp, bitter,
gone too fast,
leaving me with the kind of hangover
you don’t walk off.
you were my way out—
or at least a hope,
a muse, a laugh,
something to hold on to
in this stupid, circular life.

but I was too much,
and not enough.
all my broken pieces,
all your quiet exits.
you looked at me like I was the problem
you couldn’t solve,
and I looked at you like
you could save me.

love doesn’t save anyone.
it guts you.
it leaves you bleeding out
on a ***** floor,
picking through the mess
for anything worth keeping.
I haven’t found it yet.

is just the love
that once belonged to you
that now
has nowhere else to go.

As the sky darkens
I open my arms
to you
ushering you to
come after.
but ALAS!
you, are no longer here.

The only thing
that comes
to embrace me
is this frigid,
teasing breeze.

this breeze,
It shakes me to the bone
rips away my hope and desires
and tries to make me kneel
in agony and
wail in
pain.

it brings with it
sickness ,
darkness,
madness,
emptiness,
endless,
thunder and rain

but most importantly
it bears the memory
of your anger
logic
remorse
and planned revenge

and the rain...
well, darling,
it is frigid too.

but at least
I remember your
tears.
Your innocent,
holy,
and once warm
tears.

Darling, I try not to let a single drop
ever reach the ground.
I am outside
hands cupped.

But Darling,
your pain is so vast.
and Oh!
this small rainfall
has turned into flood
overwhelming
too vast for the well in my hands.

I let it pour,
hands outstretched
your tears mixing with my own
and I connect
with you once more
through this perverse ritual

that flimsy mask you put on
to hide from me...
you wear it to protect you
from the dangerous dreams I
share, and the flattery
I utter.

A wise choice,
for my words are sweet,
and my arrow is true
and persistent

however
it does nothing,
to hide two almond eyes
which come
gleaming through.

I miss them now,
two burning
wildfires of passion
lighting up your soul.

I am lost in a madness  
when they focus on mine.

And when you leave,
I stare blankly into the distance,
searching for a remnant
of a similar passion within nature.

But nowhere it is to be.
No blaze burns so
vividly
and
beautifully,
and dances,
so lovingly for me.

And so I return
endlessly,
to the two globes
that have ignited
the first fire in my
chest
within an epoch.

Your eyes
they will endlessly betray you, darling.
they are the one piece of you
that I have managed to possess,
and I wish that until the end of time,
they will never lie to me
and endlessly announce the
quiet truths
which the rest of your body
cannot say.