Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
You probably understand. Or maybe you don't, after all. Either way, it is jumping around inside me and if I don't let it out soon all my carbonation will fizz up and run over the side of my glass and I don't want to waste all that sweetness.

I want to kiss you underwater.

I want that kiss to be the only thing keeping us alive. Down there we are foreigners, aliens. Grasping, I want to feel your flesh in stark contrast to the smooth wetness all around me, like a secret.

All that life where we cannot live. Exotic, forbidden, so lovely. I am sick with love.
 Aug 2013 Devan McLain
Redshift
surprise, baby!
daddy brought you
a plethora of pills
a candy-store of homeopathics
a comfortable array of fixer-uppers.

go down the line
taste every flavor
melt them under your tongue
swallow them
drink them
drop them
watch daddy
watch you
for signs of
improve-
ment

he sees you slip away
into a drugged state
a smile slides onto baby's face
like melting butter
daddy is happy
because he thinks
baby
is
 Aug 2013 Devan McLain
Day
I knew when I picked that tulip from the neighbour’s yard
that I wasn’t just killing a flower but something inside of me.
I didn’t know what it was, then.


(innocence.

that’s what it was.)

I didn’t know why I told them that I found the flower that way,
broken and left to rot and “all I did was save the poor thing!”
it seemed natural to weave this story rather than confess.

I felt bad about taking that flower. for stealing someone’s
pretty pink petals
that they’d undoubtedly cared for,
pruning and watering,
that’s why they looked so good.
that’s why I picked the best of the bunch.

they knew I did it.
I insisted otherwise, and received a slap on the wrist
no more severe than when I’d pushed my little sister
or spilled glitter on the new carpet.
but this wrist-slap stuck with me.


I’d discovered more than the sweet smell
of pollen or nectar or chlorophyll seeping
out the snapped portion of the stem.
when I told this lie I’d felt a joy in me that as a four-year-old
I couldn’t explain
but it made me warm.

I inhaled the shame and drowned in guilt and I thought
of how I could do this again and not get caught.

I was addicted.


and I knew it, then.
 Aug 2013 Devan McLain
Day
I remember losing something,
but I don't have a clue anymore and I'm not
afraid anymore
because I've had a little too much to drink
and I'm sleeping in my car

I've got to return all these toys to the kids today,
rid myself of these accumulative ways
that have gotten in the way
of my body that can't escape from the
ties that I've
tethered to my toes

I remember finding a place while
looking for a friend;
the impending sun was looking for us, too
but instead of my friend a stranger emerged
and followed me back to where I came from

back to the bar that we've spent so many nights
of not remembering all the laughs
and the fights; we eat like kings,
and we sing,
and we're not afraid anymore

I wander in this old bar, like I've never
seen it before
and there's a doorway I'm sure
was never there before so I reach for the handle
and open swings the door
and the most beautiful light:
I've never seen a one shine quite as bright.

she's bathing, free as the stars themselves,
so I uncover my self
and I sit in the water with her but we don't talk,
we just smile,
and we don't kiss,
but she touches my arm and we're in love

expecting eyes peer from windows
and a slit in the door
we've decided to leave open
because there's nothing more beautiful
than being here, every laugh line,
every scar exposed

there's nothing more beautiful than
bathing in love
where every laugh line and scar is exposed


I forgot about remembering that
I've lost something,
the delivery man is here to return it
but I can't find him, either
so I dance a little bit, I sit outside
and hope he never finds me.
Forsooth, this *** of thine, so pert and tight
and Denim clad, orbs of wanton desire
that gadded man did wrest folly, and smite
wretched fortitude with embolden'd fire
of lust. verily, a janus faced Goddess
temptress to the recklings of gawded cheeks.
 Aug 2013 Devan McLain
Rumi
The moon has become a dancer
at this festival of love.
This dance of light,

This sacred blessing,
This divine love,
beckons us
to a world beyond
only lovers can see
with their eyes of fiery passion.

They are the chosen ones
who have surrendered.
Once they were particles of light
now they are the radiant sun.

They have left behind
the world of deceitful games.
They are the privileged lovers
who create a new world
with their eyes of fiery passion.
Next page