Our souls
are one thousand firecrackers
each stick waiting to burn.

Sometimes our souls are quiet,
and the firecrackers are stagnant
and wet.

And sometimes we burn slow,
the firecrackers smoldering sweet and terrible,
the ashes falling in poetic teardrops to the ground.
We are tied down and the firecrackers
are screaming to burst out with a jubilant
expression of WOWWW!

But they are denied.

Until that one moment when all the pieces are set
and finally the firework of our soul is
let loose and explodes with loud, sulfuric glory,
spreading its light and smoke and wonder
across the quiet plains.

With the warmth of the air,
so does the spark of my soul leave.
For a momentary dance in
other places, places other
than my life.

The news of your engagement came
in conjunction with the news of the death
of a long-time family friend.

Sitting in that cafe, reading the Facebook status,
trying not to make a scene in front of my friends
who were studying their textbooks.

Memories of our childhood in that dinky
farming town, making plans for our future nuptials,
giggling under flashlight-lit bedsheets and pretending
to be asleep when our footsteps were heard on the staircase.

I see now that your plan has been fulfilled,
while I sit here, reading about it, wondering whether
to leave a comment or like it. Modern technology
has made social interaction strange and dissonant.

I see now that the line between you and I
has been tightened. That now you've been figured out
and I'm still here,
sitting under the bedsheets and trying so hard
to be look sound asleep
when I hear footsteps on the staircase.

Separate
but forcefully
one.

Only together
do we

move.

Haphazard, misshapen, colliding,
yes.
But one.

We are moving. Where are we going?

Collectively the captain of a ship which holds us all.

Where are we going captain?

The thought of you

quickens my stomach, turns my skin
cold. turns my head in a hundred
different directions.

Your power

is endless.

You sit there,
a black spot,
a contrary notion in a world of blank paper.

But you don't scare me.

I can twist you and shape you and wield you with the best.

Because you're mine.

how rare is the feeling
of knowing
what one wants.