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She said to me, that first night,
"You've been touched, deeply.
But in all the worst places."
What is that flower I see?
While walking
Culloden pavilions

Sweet William
Sweet William
Sweet William

It may only be a flower
but it's story has power

to me
I see

Stinking Billy
Stinking Billy
Stinking Billy.
These supposedly small things,
Nights when the deep wrong
that we have been fed upon,
falls away and all is well.

These supposedly small things,
these lovely people,
this living for the moment.

I live for them.
765

You constituted Time—
I deemed Eternity
A Revelation of Yourself—
’Twas therefore Deity

The Absolute—removed
The Relative away—
That I unto Himself adjust
My slow idolatry—
We have a single nightstand
It is a good, solid nightstand
It has a lamp that gives just enough light
And the surface holds just enough things

We talk about having another nightstand
You know, so maybe we can expand
He agrees that, yes, maybe it'd be good to have another nightstand
We part thinking having a second nightstand is the plan

It'd be brighter
And there would be space to unpack more things
A single nightstand is good
But not enough for two people, it is unequal in the service it brings

I wait to hear his thoughts for the second nightstand
And I keep waiting, starting to question his intent;
But no, he knows. And besides, he said he wanted the second nightstand
And there was no reason to lie about how he felt

I think of reminding him about the second nightstand
You know, the one that would give us just enough room to expand
But turns out that wasn't actually his plan
And all he wanted was the one night stand.
It rose beneath our feet,
A rock, a testament to days we lost,
It trembled with our hearts,
And shook us free from selfish dreams,
To fix our eyes above,
Below,
Around,
Outside ourselves,
To care about the colour of the sky,
Or the way grass smells in the morning,
Or the intricate patterns in an insect's wing,
And our horizon grew,
And fell out from our grasp,
And ran towards the sun,
Which began to rise in the mornings,
Set in the evenings,
And every so often,
Mingle with the structures of our own hands,
And we began to sing,
And dance,
And whisper sweet nothings,
And hush our hatred,
For want of innate love - that we'd forgotten how to find.
I wish I had melatonin to match my melanin.
Dark waves of sleep for a weary body.
It would wash over me in a calming tide.
Cleanse my body and reset my mind.

But where is that tide of rest?
Did it ebb away when I thought it would flow?
It will come soon enough, but I must be patient.
I must not try.
If I do, I will certainly fail and drown in a cognizant current.

Sleep will probably be the only story of effortless success I get tell to my children.
“Kids... I slept once. Like a baby. It was the summer of '16 and it was utterly forgettable", I'll say.

But that story must be for some other day.
12:20 AM - 2:23 AM, 8/21/16
 Aug 2016 Elaenor Aisling
Akemi
maybe the ground is tilting
i descend
earth dipped in blood
kid eating a candy apple
space all stretched
fuzzed out
light beams round tree limbs
hanging lanterns
i try to speak
density
a million billion stars crushed into a black-
you pick up the jacket and throw it
the cat says bow-wow
bow-wow
bow-
my head a ******* balloon
string tangled like negative space
the moon’s surface
i hate this world
black white wash wash wash
the ground is geometry
flesh walking in circles
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