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 Jan 2014 carmen
Emma Livry
Temptation came in sliding on his knees asking, “Will you dance with me?”

He didn't say “hello”, or “wow it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”. Just a simple question. He stayed on his knees waiting for an answer, but he didn’t get one quickly. After I stumbled on my words for what seemed like forever, I finally managed a yes.

The band just finished playing. The owners turned on a CD for people to waltz to, and the floor was already crowded with smiling couples and stumbling beginners.

“You are going to lead me the whole time, okay?” I asked him, but it was more of a demand. I remembered talking to him about this place and I knew he came here a lot. We had never danced together, but I had always wanted to dance with him.

“Do you even know how to waltz?” he asked.

“I do ballet. Of course I know how to waltz.” I managed to say with more confidence than I knew I had. The memories from last summer were unfurling inside my brain and I thought I was about to explode. I didn’t think I could manage another word but I surprise myself by asking how he was.

“Oh, I’m pretty good. I ship out in June. You can’t believe how much I want to leave this place,” he said. I tried looking into his eyes, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. He was holding his gaze directly on me, but when I tried looking into his eyes, I had to look away. After all this time, I forgot their color. He then said, “Loosen up, darling. You’re so tense.” he flipped our arms around and twirled me quite a bit and I was getting lost, but he is a very good leader. He was holding my hands firmly, yet it was still gentle and we ended up with our hands over our heads. “Bend backwards,” he instructed, so I did. He lowered me down into a dip and I finally looked directly into his eyes. How could I forget that they are exactly the same color as mine?

Our faces were only but three inches apart; about a year ago, we were at a place where those three inches wouldn’t even exist. He lingered there for only a second more before I broke our gaze and he decided to briskly raise me back up and continue the waltz.

“You are really tense; loosen up,” he said again. It made sense, I have a habit of holding my breath when faced with temptation, but he just continued smiling at me.

“Sorry, I’m used to holding myself all the time.”

He just looked around the room and then dipped me again and whispered in my ear, “I’ll hold you.”

I wanted to hit him. Did he forget what happened last summer? Because I did not. I flashed back to where we were. Sitting on the rocks next to the creek that leads into the larger river. He was playing his guitar and singing me the song he wrote for me. It was cliché, but at the time it was a sweet gesture. His voice was always angelic to me. From the first time I heard him sing until the last time, which ended up being this day.

When he finished singing the song, I couldn't find any words to say. I just sat there and then he leaned over and kissed me. This wasn't the first time he kissed me, but it was different from the first time. The first time was at church and was really short. This kiss was, well, not short at all.

He brought me back up to standing and whisked me across the floor. He kept leading me and twirling me and switching our arms around. The waltz still continued and so did our conversation. I looked up at him occasionally and he was still looking at me. Throughout the dance, we drifted closer and closer together. I didn't notice when it was happening, but in this moment I realized that there was almost no space between us.

“You know, I bet my boyfriend’s pretty mad,” I said. I looked over at him. He was sitting on a bench glaring in my general direction, so I turned around abruptly and then my dance partner got a peek at him.

He laughed at the fact that he was glaring at us and then leaned in even closer to tell me something through his smile, “My girlfriend is watching too, but them watching us just makes it more fun.”
 Jan 2014 carmen
Haley Rome
“Hey Mark. It’s Hope. Um, hey. So I know that I’ve left you quite a lot of voicemails in the past few days. I just couldn’t stop worrying about where you were and…and you know how I get. So, finally, I called Rita. And she told me where you were. And now I get it! I understand why you aren’t calling me back. It’s not because you don’t like me anymore or that you’ve grown bored of me, no! It’s not that at all. It’s because…well, it’s because you’re dead. And I know that you’ll never get this and I’m talking into an empty void right now. I can almost hear you laughing at me, saying that I’m just a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear. But that’s comforting, in a weird way. Especially because of the previous voicemails I left, before I knew where you were. I mean, Jesus, those were so embarrassing just thinking about them makes me want to die! But I’m not dead. You are. Um. Well, I just called because I wanted you to know that you…you were different. You are different. Just because you’ve died doesn’t mean you’re suddenly not   sweet or intelligent or courageous or loving. Now that you’re gone my world is a blur full of colors and light but lacking all definition. I went to your work yesterday. All of your coworkers were swarming around me and I just stared and couldn’t recognize anyone. Not even Rita. I had to ask her name, I was so humiliated. And she…she did something that you used to do to comfort me. I doubt she even knew she was doing it. She must’ve picked it up from you or something. Um. She started to massage my hands, you know, like you would do when I would get too scared to breathe. And I closed my eyes. I swear, I swear that in that moment it was you. I know it was you. You were there calming me down, helping me breathe. And I finally could. For the first time in years, I could. But then she asked how I was feeling and I had to open my eyes. I said I didn’t know. I don’t know. I do know that I miss you. I think it’s funny that when I talk about you to others, and I talk about missing you, I can say it in the present tense but when I say that I love you, it sounds wrong. Like they expect me to say that I loved you, as if my devotion stopped the second your heart did. I still love you. I did and I do and I will. I just don’t know if I can ever-" *Message deleted. Press 1 to record again.
 Jan 2014 carmen
Megan Grace
fin
 Jan 2014 carmen
Megan Grace
fin
it's just

that I hope macaroni and
cheese makes you miss me
and that you'll be downtown
and drive by my building and
see my car and feel an ache in
your chest because you are not
allowed inside anymore and
that your hands can barely
play all those songs you wrote
about me at your shows and
that the book on astronomy I
gave you glares at you from
the shelf and that no one will
kiss you like I did, no one will
make you shiver like I did, no
one will light a fire inside of you
like
I
did.
is it wrong to be this mad?
 Jan 2014 carmen
Raj Arumugam
Descartes and Isaac Beeckman,
Monsieur de Chandoux
and Jacob Golius
are talking

Monsieur de Chandoux
asks if Descartes will attend his next lecture
and Descartes replies: “I don’t think so”
And Descartes disappears
*Cogito ergo sum* (I Think, therefore I am) -  Rene Descartes (1596-1650)/poem based on an online joke
 Jan 2014 carmen
Raj Arumugam
When the apostrophe disappears
from ones verse or prose
its plain to see
theres mayhem, and everyones brain is  muddled
I cant make sense of what youre saying
and the judge cant tell if the farm is
Joes or Marys or Philips
or quite literally the pigs own

And of course when it appear’s
in the wrong place’s, it get’s up
everyone’s nerve’s or nose’s;
and it cause’s an identity crisis
between its and it’s;
and its’ like ****’
(thi’s mess’ is’)–
please, please, please -
running down to one’s toe’s

It’s obvious to see
that the apostrophe -
that comma that hangs in the air -
is worth mastering
or may you hang in its stead
It is the business of every writer to master the basics of punctuation. The complexities and the quarrels over the mechanics of punctuation we can leave to the unimaginative and nit-picking editors.
/No offence meant to anybody - I only mean to be helpful in verse, with some humour and spirit. (I don't mind if editors are offended though.)
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