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 Mar 2021 ju
Evan Stephens
What Now?
 Mar 2021 ju
Evan Stephens
Our chemistry
is so wrecked.
I adore you -
you don't adore me,
but maybe you do,
you are so depressed,
we're just waiting that out
& seeing how things feel after.
In the meantime, you treat me
alternatingly like a casual
acquaintance and a former lover,
while I am unwavering in my
devotion to your cause.
I cried for an hour at my desk
because I am so unhappy.
Please let this end,
please come back
to who you were.
 Mar 2021 ju
Evan Stephens
Ache
 Mar 2021 ju
Evan Stephens
The simple sun today
just aches away.
I go outside,
bloodshot-eyed
with trembled lip,
& join the withered pip
on a whisking walk
to break away from surface talk,
to escape my vacant nest,
the closing tightness in the chest.
When I'm back I yearn
for your return
from the green,
the awful, awful green.
But I would take the green
with a smile if it would mean
I'd be with you,
no hopeless queue.
But today? The simple sun today
just aches away.
revision of a very old poem (1997) in rhyming couplets.
 Mar 2021 ju
Evan Stephens
I'm inclined
on green couch -
I work towards
my best face,
my wrist angle
marries the *****-light
to the pane-shadow.
You, so darkly pretty,
totally oblivious
to the agonies
of little cameras.
We talk too few minutes,
say goodbye too soon,
fumble with the chemistries
that still crackle between us,
despite your wall and wine.
Little cameras reveal me
the wrong way, but
they bring you to me
across the thousands.
I'm redeemed
when my heart
pushes for you,
sweet glass.
 Mar 2021 ju
Thomas W Case
I want to get
the facts out.
The glass from under
my skin.
The rails from the
timber.
Just because I said
that your *** looks
nice in those jeans,
doesn't mean you
get to treat me like
*** crazed dog.
I gave you a compliment;
nothing more.
You're not an object.
And neither am I,
so don't talk to
me like one.
I'm not every
other guy you've
ever met.
Lift your eyes
a little higher,
that's where I am.
 Mar 2021 ju
Evan Stephens
Ochre chaperones
watch stolidly
as I bawl
into floorboards.
But I hold on
to my hopes -  
"best vibes forever,"
I promised that,
& I'll keep it.
Amber eye
on the pole,
please don't tell on me,
let me sink to
the laminate tonight,
choking on name.
 Mar 2021 ju
Thomas W Case
I miss her, and
it's uncomfortable.
I'm not used to
feelings.
In the past, I would
drink when I
felt uncomfortable,
or felt anything, for
that matter.
Now, I identify
the feelings, like
a strange new
species of animal:
"Oh yes, that's sadness.
It's indigenous to
the western plains of
the heart."
Feeling emotions is
strange and scary,
but it beats the
alternative;
feeling nothing,
and dying alone.
 Mar 2021 ju
Evan Stephens
Lulled on whisky,
listening to the rain alone -
I'm tired of living
3000 miles from your
bread and salt,
which is to say
I believe in us,
that there are ways
to get this done,
& move the sea step,
clean our slate.
When you smile again,
please remember me.
I am the one waiting
on your smallest fraction,
thinking of you...
it feels like I am always
thinking of you.
 Mar 2021 ju
Prevost
Gifts
 Mar 2021 ju
Prevost
maybe he noticed me
when my eyes were reaching
out across the hills
trying to find the edges of the world
maybe he did look inside me
and saw what was once himself

I was most often quiet
a juxtaposition to the rage
I was always trying to sew back together
the hearts
and push the tears back into
their eyes
(his too)

I spent almost every waking moment
with a man
who both loved and hated me
knowing those ragged edges
was a gift
because the world is a broken place
and I am alive in it....
 Mar 2021 ju
Lori Jones McCaffery
None of it works for me
Not dance, not music, not even art.
Not words or rhymes or fairy tales
That talk of ever-after.
All of it is useless in this void.
              ljm
The Blue-moodies have attacked me again.
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