The house was perfect for us.
I always wanted stairs like these
because I only had
one floor growing up.
Moving in with all these nice things
and that hopeful excitement
of things to come.

After a few weeks of settling in,
finally got that dog
you talked about,
the white retriever you saw
at the shelter,
such a little pup with soft, big eyes.
He loved to climb around your bed
and sleep curled next to you
almost to the point that I was jealous,
but at first he couldn't get up
on the bed at all,
so he would whine timidly
till you grabbed him up and
buried him in your arms.

Once he knocked over
that photo of us from the wedding
off the bedside table
but the glass didn't crack.
What a treasure that frame contained!
A smile like the one you held
with white teeth in white dress.
The most valuable treasure in the world.

I remember you crying
the night you told me
you were pregnant.
I think I might've cried too,
we were so excited.
Finally starting a family,
finally living out our dreams together,
the two of us
there in that wonderful home
with two stories,
and with that wonderful dog,
with a child on the way,
and those invaluable
treasures of love and hope and family,
vaulted forever in our hearts.

I taste the bitterness
like salt on your lips—
the sadness in your sweat
a single bead that slips with care
down the crescent of your cheek.
The small of your back
is arched and tight
and I read the tension in the
subtle protrusions of your vertebrate
as I climb them with a finger.

You are full of your own miseries,
you sad  and beautiful devil.
You are full of your loves
and your hates.
Your good deeds
and the shadow cast over
them by your mistakes.
I taste them each individually.
I read them in each notch of your spine.
I learn them in every movement and touch
of our solitary dance.

I fear I will be another
for someone else
to understand one day.

by John M. Ford*


The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.

I drink in order to write
and, often times,
I write to be able to to drink
without the fallout
that surely would
accompany it
otherwise.

There is a madness,
an itch in the back of the throat,
hoarse from screaming,
broken now and caught
on the knowledge
that no one has heard,
let alone understood,
again and again and…