She’s brewing like rich wine
the older she gets
her each added faceline
my eyes satiates.

She’s huing like violets
purpling is her soul
tho older she gets
she's never too ole.

She’s frothing like nectar
honeying in core
feels endless this affair

I’m loving her more.

I feel so inexplicably vulnerable
I'm naked behind the fogged glass
The water running off my skin
Off in drips, in streams
I can see his silhouette on the other side
But can only imagine what he sees
I am so much more than naked, bare

He mutters shush, hissing like the snake he is
Through the water, steam, and fogged glass
I swear I see his lips curve into a distorted, manic grin
On the other side of the breakable barrier
I am just as equally breakable
I'm too afraid to move
Why are locked doors forbidden in this house
His hands lift and his fingers graze the glass
On the barrier he traces crooked lines
That bend and curve like I do
I can feel myself shaking
As lines create clear windows between us

And he stops
I feel faint, nauseous
His eyes are staring
And mine are tearing

When he leaves
I sink to the floor
The water running off my skin
Off in drips, in streams

After all these years
of having pen in hand
Being high on ideas
and low on demand
Writing the same lines
over again and again
Throwing in a new noun
where an old verb had been

There's nothing new
under the sun
The sky is still blue
the North has still won
I still talk with a draw
before I've even begun
In the spitting of words
where I'm just having fun

Never had any problems
deep in my soul
Where the dark side of me
takes over control
A Pulitzer prize
has never once been my goal
I just like to rhyme
with the stories I've told

So if you'll please pardon me
as I get back to my pen
I feel another poem
is trying to let itself in
Like every other time
this is how it begins
After all these years
of having pen in hand

as one
a play between
a man and a woman
fantasies of a man in jail
and the woman who released him
so let us go for a five mile walk and imagine
hold a pulse in our hands
while we listen to
"All my lovin"
to remember he said
'don't ever take one day for granted"

I found myself today
I found my strength, imagine that
on the breath of a shy whiskered cat
imagine how great to drift out of yourself
Float off through the night to see your desires
The beautiful feeling of being unrestrained by your skin
To look upon the face you can not replace
and see them smiling and happy
I love to dissolve in the street lights hue
and dance on the rain spinning around you
You know I'm there but you can't find me
No matter how hard you stare, but you can feel me
If we could meet on an astral plane,
we could fly together and make love in the rain

© Crystal Erickson 9/21/08