i. "Why did the number of parking tickets spike
when Persephone was carried off to the underworld?
Demeter wasn't working."
She liked greek mythology puns.
It was a good thing I was creative.

ii. Truth or Dare, I asked her what
was the best decision she's ever made.
she answered with, "In 7th grade I named my puppy Achilles,
so when I saw him I could say, 'Achilles, heel!'"

iii. It took me two weeks to realise that
when we held hands, I wasn't really
holding her hand, but a chainsaw,
ready to slash through anything that stood in our way like
Hercules chopping off the Hydra's head.
I was immortal.

iv. August eleventh; 9 PM
we watched for the meteor shower.
I connected the freckles splayed upon her knee,
told her they looked like the constellation of Cassiopeia.
"Be Sirius" she jested.

v. She had a bad habit
of smoking at the beach and I
Wondered if she knew that with
every single flick of ash into the water,
Poseidon was cursing her to the River Styx.

vi. Headaches visited her often, I joked that
maybe she was getting ready to birth
a Goddess from her cranium. She
did not find it clever.

vii. You could say we became like Aphrodite and
Hephaestus. I, longing for her. She,
lusting after another. A synonym for her
headaches would be me.

viii. Apparently if you hack off a Hydra head, two
would grow to replace it. Knowing this sooner
probably would have saved me from numerous
amounts of Kleenex and chocolate.

ix. She left me a note on the dresser,
"Fun fact: Medusa's favourite cheese was
Gorgon-zola. PS - you remind me
of Medusa, please remember to brush your hair."
She reminds of Medusa as well, I do not doubt that if we
meet again, her eyes would still turn me into
stone.

well not really… though I told
every grinning green Catholic soul
at my school I did that and more

I did smell the wine on her breath
and watch her trip into the trailer  
her gown hitting the floor  
before she closed the door  
her body as white as the fake snow  
spitting onto the set, and
as cold perhaps

I was sixteen and she was fifty one  
this was my one and only, her last,  
flick, not fling, though I would have
cut off an arm for it to have been so  
not the arm she touched  
in our one immortal scene together…  
her electric hand,  
all the blond hairs on my forearm standing at attention  
me wondering if the camera caught
their helpless vertical veer  

it mattered not, most of the scene
landed not on the screen, but
the cutting room floor, my two lines slashed to one  
my 48 seconds with her shaved to 22

I did not cry when I heard she died,
twenty months later, but my lie seemed soiled  
once she was in the ground
I confessed to Father Ryan  
he was silent when
I asked what to tell  
the fools who believed  
the dying star lay with me  
simply because she said,  
“Call me Vivien, not Ms Leigh”

It was the time of summer where every kid had silently realized that it was ending,
No longer halfway through, no longer half full
Leaking and spilling out,
like the gas in my twenty two year old car
We couldn’t stop it,
And the moments of high school summertime
The moments that supposedly turn into stories we tell forever
Hadn’t seemed to have happened.

Both of us on the swing lazily swung
Dizzily from side to side.
Climbing forward, falling in reverse
Our combined bodyweight shifting back and forth
Tanned legs kicking up in an attempt at unison on every backwards glide.
Gravity hung us there,
Pulling the swing toward the ground no matter the rotation.

I sat on top.
I wore bleached shorts and bleached hair.
I worried that gravity or more so my value to it
would crush him.


At the same time, I felt unbelievably small.


The air pressed in on me from all angles,
it touched my bare legs
it easily waffled my shirt.

“Mel, if you were squishing me, I would let you know”,
he assured with a cocky tone of his very own that somehow made me feel special.
I couldn’t help but think he was only trying to be tough
Attempting to let sheer willpower overweigh my well earned quads,
My six foot frame.
The awkward body I never quite grew into
Never knew how to masterfully control
Never knew how to fill.
Though I secretly (wanted to) truly believe him

On this humid night I felt like the ball was in my court,
Like I could do anything and everything.
That nothing could go wrong
That the boy that I was sitting on was genuine
And that I could simply drive off to wherever.

(I had a full tank of gas and enough money to get me to Alabama).

I felt small in this,
in this infinity of possibility all around me.
Like a weight was pushing into me
Putting on pressure that couldn’t be ignored
That shrunk me just enough.
I felt powerless to fate
Powerless to this planet
To this grand, glorified hunk of earth which was so much greater than me
(and surely my insignificant weight anxieties).

I felt like the gas was leaking out faster than I could use it.
I felt like my infinity was disappearing as I swung within it.


Just like that, I let the ball drop and the gas leak out.
We just kept swinging.
Laughing,
Wasting,
Talking,

Dying.

So who said,
I cannot cry?
Or be free,
to say how I feel?
Why is that a rule?

To hide it all away,
within me,
or shove it in my ever bursting heart,
who would that help?

Don't be afraid of the tears I cry,
I am not weak,
I'm strong
Because I won't listen to you
I'll them out,
big hot ones
and little soft ones,
laying down ones that drown my face

The tears will fall,
freely
and they will,
warm me my eyes
and make them cherry red

My tears are all separate
and they are all equal
So Judge me,
go ahead and call me crazy
I am what I am,
but at least I *know

i wanted you to know
that the other day,

i went ice skating           in St. Paul.                      

in the middle of the city.

                                             (there was an old man that looked like Santa doing beautiful graceful twirls,
                                                         two teenage girls holding hands, one was blushing
                                                                         lots of little kids falling down, and laughing as they got back up)

and i thought "you would have loved this."

you would hold my hand
like all the other couples
and i wouldn't be cold

                                                           ­     at all



you would have looked right through me
with your jaded eyes
and smiled beautifully




(i would know that it was me making you happy)

your hair growing back
and your lips all mine to kiss


and i wouldn't miss you so much.

I had as lief be embraced by the portier of the hotel
As to get no more from the moonlight
Than your moist hand.

Be the voice of the night and Florida in my ear.
Use dasky words and dusky images.
Darken your speech.

Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking,
But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts,
Conceiving words,

As the night conceives the sea-sound in silence,
And out of the droning sibilants makes
A serenade.

Say, puerile, that the buzzards crouch on the ridge-pole
and sleep with one eye watching the stars fall
Beyond Key West.

Say that the palms are clear in the total blue.
Are clear and are obscure; that it is night;
That the moon shines.

The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there--
Its two webs.

The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.

There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.