C Phillips: Favorites

Nov 2012 C Phillips

Madeline

i don't know how to love
two people -
i don't know how
to choose.

the fact is that right now i'm yours,
but i watched him playing today, feeling the music with every part of his soul,
and my heart has never beat that way before.

my breath has never been more taken.

i have a weakness, you see
for people who make beautiful things,
and i could feel the strikes of his drums in my blood -
i could feel it through the floor
straight into my body,
until i couldn't tell you where my heart stopped
and the drumbeats started.

my friends promised me that it's only a phase,
and that you are who i want, truly
because you are who i have
and they're probably right,
but right now there's a part of my heart
that is pumping my blood with drumbeats,
and right now there is a part of my heart
that isn't yours.

Nov 2012 C Phillips

Good Dreams

Nov 2012 C Phillips

Samuel

Good Dreams

Tonight I begin the actual

the one hundred and fifty percent commitment to
everything worthwhile

and you, dear

are at the top of that list

Nov 2012 C Phillips

Curtain Skin

Nov 2012 C Phillips

Natalie N Johnson

Curtain Skin

If my skin were a curtain
I'd pull back the drapes
at the corner of my clavicle.
the breathing, feeling organs
of my torso would reveal
what you never see.

the clenches in my stomach
when I catch your fleeting glance

the double-thump of my heart
relishing your bare shoulder

my lungs frozen--suffocating
under your cold, soft touch

shrinking with the biggest sigh
as I watch you walk away.

But I always wear my skin
two layers too thick
and hide my delightful shame
of delighting in shaming you.

Oct 2012 C Phillips

wild roses

Oct 2012 C Phillips

Cali

wild roses

there is a girl made of stardust
and ocean salt, breathing static
into the night sky.
her love, if tended to
with patient hands, would
grow like wild roses across
the trellises of your heart.

she is not born of men;
but a child of luna,
sweet mother.
she is a breeze in July
softly rustling your hair
and the plague of
heatstroke and withered
tongues that swiftly follows.
her touch lingers into
the winter solstice.

she is the wave of sorrow
sweeping over your bones
and the light in your eyes
shining with leftover love;
a shadow dressed in white,
a consummation of grief.

she is a wallflower, a habitual
offender to the gods.
she will nurture you like an infant
and then leave you on your knees,
gasping for redemption.

Oct 2012 C Phillips

delirium

Oct 2012 C Phillips

Cali

delirium

i know your demons,
and I kiss them on their pale and
broken foreheads to appease you.
i know the map of your skin,
of your bones, like white gold.

my hands are shaking
as the stars collide and
the dust of them lingers in
your eyelashes; and
i should detest you
by now, but you have
this way of consuming me
with the shadows in your
irises, but i

exhale- a breath like the
million before you came,
a plume of smoke,
radio static.

smoldering desire lights
upon my tongue and
infiltrates my thoughts.

and it is overwhelming,
everything at once;
our love may be a chronic
illness, but
the delirium is
hauntingly
beautiful.