There was a time before
lies passed through our lips—
before the world tossed us
in all of its muck and mess;
a time when we found redemption
in a bowl of sugary breakfast cereal
and when we thought we were
always one step ahead
of a coyote and his dynamite.
 
There was a time before we
knew how to take advantage of hearts—
when we hid our secrets in glass jars
and buried them in the backyard;
a time when we wouldn’t mind
making the climb, if only to enjoy
the breeze on our way to a crashing halt;
when we thought that sleep
was a punishment
and not a cure for a problem.

There was a time
when living was second nature;
when feeling was as easy
as taking a breath, and
risk was down right,
**** straight,
******* ****.

That time?
It's a figment of a younger imagination.
But that time just may be
my metaphor for you.

My heart was a secret garden and the walls surrounding it were very high.
Reluctantly, I allowed you to knock every wall down..
and with grace, I breathed in every promise you made and believed with great certainty that this time would be my last time.
To love you was no challenge, but loving you from this new found distance is a feeling much too common.
For your kiss feels like home; and my darling, I am homesick.

Dizzy and uncontrolled, I open my eyes to see the smoke crowding the air.
For, my body has just become a safe haven for your hands.
Temptation has won tonight.
Moonlight is dancing upon our bare bodies and I am immersed in pure satisfaction.
Our lips have synced with the circadian rhythm we possess and the fire has started to erupt.
As the flames get more and more intense, so does the love we pretend to have for each other.
It continues to grow until we convince ourselves it’s real.
The bedsheets serve as our common ground for our broken hearts to rest on.
As we are climbing and pretending; pretending and climbing,
The fire is getting hotter, the love is getting cloudier, and our bodies are getting heavier against on another’s.
Faint whispers of phrases we dare not say otherwise fill the room.
Finally, the fire is extinguished and we are left to lay with nothing but reality.
Clutching each other for protection from yet another fire, we doze off hoping to wake up in love with each other.

I've always been
pretty melancholy
It's not hard to see it in my eyes
I've been that way my whole life
You might not think they're good ones
but I have my reasons
My parents divorced when I was very young
But I wasn't old enough to understand what that meant at the time
That couldn't really **** me up on its own
It led to a controlling stepfather though
who was always quick to put his hands on my face
whenever I said or did something he didn't like
as I was growing up
It also led to a stepsister
a daughter of my stepmother's
who was quick to do things
that I'll leave to your imagination
rather than talking about explicitly
And my Dad was an angry man
He threw things
Knives salt shakers you name it
It was always frightening to see
such displays of something that was in my blood
Don't get me wrong
I had a decent childhood overall
despite the ******* at two homes
and being ****** with at school for being fat
My adult life has been much better
I lost all the weight
I've had pretty girls
probably more of them than I deserve
I've been in jail
and on top of mountains
I've gotten drunk with my friends
and we've done drugs a few times
Okay lots of times
I like my **** just like my Dad
and I like my whiskey just like his Dad
It's in the blood
So I've had fun
I've had moments of bright yellow laughter
in between rose pink kisses
Bursts of joy
fresh and spring green
Dark red bouts of passion
tender ones in beds
and hard ones with fists
Fleeting silvery embraces of grief
Episodes of orange boisterousness
Soft cerulean calmnesses and peace
But all of these colors
are just random brush strokes and splatters
added to a canvas that was first entirely covered
with the deepest most aching shade of violet
immediately after being placed upon the easel
Someday maybe the violet won't show through to others
I'll always know it's there

Surrounded by watercolor sunsets,
I'm left with fifty slow miles
of untamed back road.

A half smile stays fixed
on my lips
and tilts slightly to the right.

Cracked pavement makes wheels
tremble in fine rhythms
and the heavy pulse
in my inner thighs
beats to match.

I'm on my way home
and in love
with the single notion
that I've been somewhere.

While I drive,
there's a gentle devil
who sits on my shoulder.
He croons satisfying tones
as he kisses my earlobe
and breathes this message
sensually down
the side of my neck:

“Mmm, baby,
consider this
your first lesson
in survival
on Pleasure Island.”