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When glass fogs,
And I see her prints,
(Those flat and cold smear fossils),
I know they're oval ghosts,
Or bodies.
Lonely remnants,
Of
Some girl,
Some body,

    

Just that,
No more.

But the prints, they stay.
Long after the funeral bouquet
Decayed by her grave.
After it became more difficult to be brave,
Day by day, until
I couldn't, or
I can't, because
This struggle doesn't end
Until it's over.
We bleed, are broken
And grow older,
Burdened by the inherited blame
That we shoulder.
We are so many lost, adrift,
Darkly hidden from rescuing planes and ships,
     Yet,
Deep in our abysmal rift,
I found the peak of existence,
Resting on her gold petal lips.
I lived more in the moments she blessed me with,
Than I have lived ever since
And if I could choose, I would live in my youth
With her,

Just that,
No more.






*Critiques are very much appreciated.
and
i’ve spent the last
six months of my life
dying to die
with no results.
and in that time i’ve
been walking
on a sidewalk that
is crooked and cracked
into some godforsaken
place. through my journeys
i’ve come to rely
on two certainties:
that i will go to bed
unsatisfied and hungry.

and every night is
a rainy one and cats eat
the fur and bones of dogs dead
in the flooded gutters. the grey
monoliths of the city
are always a step away, but
i don’t get any closer.

and if i could give back
all the cigarette ash and whiskey
i’ve drank i’d do it because
i’d be losing blank meaningless
memories, or at least
they mean nothing to me. i can’t
say the same about
those people in the memories.

and i passed the corner
where i sat drunk on the brick
with my friend, smoking
a cigarette and i remember
telling him that it was
going to be alright. i don’t
know if i was lying or if
i didn’t know the truth
but he left.

and i walked by the home
of my first love and the windows
were dark and the cars were
gone from the driveway.

and i found myself in front
of the house of the girl
i loved who didn’t love me
and the air was black, save
for the glare of a lighter through
the rain and i remembered
a dream i had.
 Nov 2013 Josephine VanHise
Mary
little button eyes
little wrinkled burlap skin.
limp string hair
and matching flaccid smile.
a simple dress,
in triangle style.
a simple heart,
full of holes.
it
is
haunting
how
faint
the
memories
of
both
success
and
failure
are
to
me
The maximum ******* capacity
for this universe has been exceeded
I don't want to get started; I don't know if I have what it takes to stop it, once life is static no longer*

Transient winds dislodge cobwebs from closets--
Silk mist that drifts
(Like half-daydreamed doves from our
Starlight and eyelash ark
Half-reclaimed by the sea)
Across our
New car smell, white-wash wall
Stumble before the fall,
Pick each other up and kiss the gravel off,
Apartment.

I scream "apartment",
To the concrete and steel
Of her skin, a bridge that's
Closed as tightly as her
Proust pressed flower lips.

My faults are
Tattooed across my skin
In full color comic strips.
I tongue the interior dents
Birthed when
She taught me
What apart meant.
I started writing this as I was getting in bed, and got caught up in it. It might be a little rushed because I'm lusting for some sleep, but I like the skeleton of it. It continues a loose narrative I've been following.
He sees the world as her backdrop,
And loves her wholly.
She knows that and wants to love him back, but
All she can feel is lonely.

As he sleeps she cries in
Tight, silent heaves in rhythm
With his chest as he breathes.
His face is lit from neon light,
Slipping through a slit on the strung-up sheet--
An eye to the street,
And to everything that's beyond this life that she leads.
But she needs him and
Please, she begs, Have him
Hate me, at least.  I'm weak--
I'll linger until he throws me away,
Because at least then I can say
That it wasn't my choice, but
Everything must fade.


She goes on a walk every night now,
Riddled with complexes and smoking,
Eyes roving with 2AM mascara,
Wearing a spring dress in dead winter.
Head down in a crowd, aware
Of herself existing only when men stare.
They crave for her, she craves for him,
Her sadness, a narcotic magnetism.

She drowned off the coast
Of the island in her kitchen.
She weighed herself down with
Her faults like mountains and
Yellowed ambition.
Everything around me swirled

like ink in the rain

drastically surging waves crashing

against me, stringing what I couldn’t quite grasp

across my entirety

until I lay helpless, inside myself

because I had no idea

how to put your pieces back together

even if it was in my place to do so

even if you let me

I wanted to stitch you back to

someone who was happy

but I kept forgetting

how to understand

the world around me

as a stage and choreography

I knew that I wanted to blurt my next line

but the cue was never given

and all these things

wrapped ropes around me

choking my words

chaining them to my lungs

and I meant to try

but I just don’t

know

how.

*i’m sorry.
I wish I could fix you,
Take all those broken pieces in your head
And glue them together again.
Then maybe you’d see yourself as the person you are
Rather than the one you wish you were.

I wish I could fix you,
Take all those little things about yourself
That you hate and let you love them.
Then maybe you’d learn to be the person you are
Rather than act like the one you wish you were.

I wish I could fix you,
Mend you; make you into someone who believes
In life and love again.
But I can’t. I don’t know who you are
And I don’t know who you wish you were;
All I know is there’s a stranger on the bus
With silver tears falling down, down, down
Trying to hide the emptiness in her eyes.

I wish I could fix you.
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