we didn’t need music
just the hum of the fridge
and the dog barking two floors down.
the sheets were half off the bed,
her hair in knots,
my hands shaking
like I’d lived a hundred lives
and never touched something so real.

Serena—
she looked at me like she already knew
where the cracks were
and kissed me there first.
no ceremony,
just heat and breath
and two ******-up hearts
trying to beat in time.

she moaned like it mattered,
like the world might stop spinning
if we didn’t keep going.
I bit her lip, she scratched my back,
we left bruises that felt like
truth.

afterward,
she lit a cigarette
with a hand still trembling
and said,
"we’re not broken,
just bruised in the right places."
and I believed her.

Some cary pain in silence and grace not as a weapon .

"come in, come in, part the curtains.
I'll tell your future.

i tip toed in...heavy night
beyond the door.
the curtains parted rippling
like water circling a deepening hole

and the face of shadow moans,
"you seem to be looking for answers???"

"well, yeah, does the size of the tombstone
tell how much you are loved,
or how much love you gave?'

"sit down," the shadow tells me,
i'll dust off the prayer wheel,
tell your future."

"when i was a kid
i dreamed in shadows
and whispered to the night.

i know the future.

the dead go to places
they will only know."

the face of shadow offers
roses cupped in wistful hands.

the shadow dissipating,
petals from black roses falling to the ground.

With you the Moon
is a bouquet of Roses
Glowing within the sweet vineyard
Of the evening sky
blessed with pretty serenades
For ordinary folks and romantics
Like me and you
That stretches beyond the blue

Where Our love
is golden,
Within its petals and caresses,
While you wear my loves flowers
In the honey of your tresses,
The waves waltz
In their natural dresses,
To heavenly shore

Within this sweet vineyard
Our love is a Summer waltz
That is always luminous and kind,
Things are sublime like fine wine
And everybody is in love
With one another and themselves
Like a pretty festive cruise

Reynaldo Casison

Disconnected families
With cellphones at dinner
So many girls starving themselves
Just to get thinner

I wonder how many people
Wish they were never born
I wonder how many people
Love the person that makes their heart torn

Why did the world make it so that
The people who are so kind
Have to get hurt from the fall from heaven?
Why must it make the people with cold hearts
Not be the ones to get frozen?

Everyone feels alone
Even though there are 8 billion of us
I feel right in between emotional
And emotionless

Maybe that’s just life
For there is no such thing as Utopia

Now though,
All we can do is exist
And then not
Be happy sometimes
But let ourselves also be distraught