It's excruciating
Being surrounded by laughter and love
While sitting behind a paper thin wall
Silently alone

It's horrifying
Hearing someone else's joyful speech
While trapped in a dark room with a locked door
Painfully aware

~ for Paul Eluard

This prison isn't so bad.
Though the nights are cold,
tree roots break in to warm him.
The guards hum Mozart arias
which are profoundly comforting
and the food drives away
all expectations of hunger.
The sun is black but reassuring;
the moon has gone missing.
The books he doesn't have pass the time.
The caresses of absent women soothe his body.
Many birds choose not to sing
but invisible cats purr delightfully.
Often he is offered parole,
but can't imagine a better situation
and chooses to remain in his comfy cell.
Solitude sings sweet remembered songs
and all the trenches are far away.
Sometimes he misses the smells of flowers
but that soon passes and anyway
grass sprouts in the yard
surrounded by concertina wire.
Sometimes butterflies light upon it,
deliciously anomalous.
Nothing occupies him every day;
He is comfortable here and plans to stay.
   - mce

It contains
many volumes.
Women show up,
check them out,
but never
return them.
I keep hoping
one will
come back
and say,
do you have
anything else
by this author?
She will be
the reader
of my heart.
  - mce

From the innocence
That she portrays
You'd never guess
She'd seen such days
Of drugs and *****
And easy lays

You'd never guess
Upon her cheeks
Once lived the tears
That always wreaked
With self disgust
At its highest peak

You'd never know
Upon her thighs
Is where shes written
All her lies
And in those scars
Her hatred hides

-ARI

Allow me to step into your space.
Let us be close,
standing face to face.
So close...
Where our hands could meet,
and our hearts could greet...
The one chance
to finally indulge this long awaited dance.

Cradling one another...
In open arms.
Surendering...
Submitting...
To careless caresses,
bashful gazes and charms.

Our feet would mirror,
the gaits
of each other.
Our eyes ensnared
with senses all bared...
To the rise and fall
of the nectarous melody.
Playing for what seemed like eternity
in silence.

That eternity is now here.
Seizing this dance,
we gambol and frolic
without reservations and fear...
For the hours have frozen
and the seconds have ceased to tick.

This is our song.
Seemingly refined,
cultured and well versed.
This is our dance.
Enchanting,
perfect,
albeit unrehearsed.