What do you do when you heart is a mute?
You know how it feels but its feelings, at times, seem untrue.
Beating not only for one, but two lives alone,
out of rhythm it is, like a old broken phone.

How can you tell what it wants when it barely speaks,
all your feelings bundled deep in the veins of stardust you keep...
my you keep them so very hard to find, so hidden from every aspect of your mind.

So you allow you body to take guesses at what your heart wants,
living life under pressure of choices the aren't always smart.
Is it possible to love more than once, or twice at a time?
How about never at all?
Is hate such a crime...?

Hopefully your heart learns to speak or write some form of brail,
because darling someone will read it and kindle it well.

(j.a.r.) Julia Aubrey Rhodes

Maybe, we were too caramelized.

Yes, that's right, too caramelized, too sweet, too cozy and warm, slowly oozing against the fire we were leaning on, feeding off of each others sugar, each others, well, sweet tooth.

There is a reason you mom tells you not to eat too much candy on Halloween or not to eat that last cookie in the jar, and it is because she knows how much you will want more. She knows how hard it is to stop once you have already gotten that sweet craving on your lips.

But, still you eat, and you indulge in these phantasmagoric forms of sugar... and even though she warned you, you are left sitting with you teeth rotten out with an ache like no other.

If I can say one thing to you, a final word, all I would be able to mutter is the word "disappointment".

My body shakes so much because my soul is constantly on the verge of collapsing, and more than one word would allow the goo to flow right out, to drown you.

And in some ways, some where along the road when I so happen to run into you, I know it will be different.

And yes, because we have changed, and because we always have been different, even the humidity couldn't evaporate the facts.

But just wait, maybe there's a chance, a cork in the old bottle of mascot might just save the rich flavor we once had, maybe even make it stronger after a few years.

For now, I will leave a candle in my window every night, because even without my sun, I have a flame that is bound to catch fire somewhere else in the dark.

-Julia Aubrey Rhodes-

can I replace the new with old and call it new, or is that false representation?

will you sue me if I throw in a few past words and sell them to you as newer and better, more reliable, even though they might not be?

what about if I offer to steal a few glances to keep your thoughts scrambling for more?

can I seal a few letters with my Amsterdam red lipstick, to prove that there isn't a word I wrote to you that didn't come straight from my mouth, even though a few, ok all of them probably didn't?

after all, it is real, right?

-Julia Aubrey Rhodes-

is it the ever flowing images that keep me "going", that keep me "from moving"?

quite confusing, in both ways.

in some ways they allow the blood in my veins to rush to my cheeks when I chose, even sometimes by surprise, but in others, I can barely fathom a moment without them, the memories.

if I were to be living without the images of you, I suppose I would begin to visit you in dream; like someone I have never met but would like to.

you are a dream in all honestly...at least now you are.

there is a nauseating rush now, like a cracked mosaic, like a weak cherry tree in the late fall, like an yelled secret in outer space; and all I suppose is real, are the words I say in my sleep, the longing I remember when I wake, the pain I feel later in the day when I try and remember every arrangement of letters than passed my lips, your fruit punch stained ones.

a third is good, a third is bad, and the other third is neutral...

stuck in the middle, consuming both the good and the bad, blending in camouflage.

I cannot tell which is which.

-Julia Aubrey Rhodes-

maybe, if it's ok to say now, I still dance alone to the melody you put inside of my mind.

scratches on the splits of a turning black vinyl, a little out of tune perhaps, and skipping to the chorus at times unexpected.

my bare feet jump around this effervescent tune, afraid of taking the wrong step, not following your lead.

and as the song slows, as it comes to an end, I delicately observe the ringing remnants left dangling around our heads...

forever gone, but a hazy redolent all the rest.

-Julia Aubrey Rhodes-

I cannot seem to understand those people who view others as a utensil, a get away, a fancy party.

When you are yourself, that is all you will ever owe them.

Even in grief, debt, and self doubt, all you will ever owe them is for you to be you.

Could you possibly owe them a lovely touch, a tender look,  that's not too much?

Why of course you don't.

You do not owe them a night alone, a sweet word through the phone, all of you feelings known to them, you do not owe them a single thing, and if you feel like you do, there is a black screen over everything in your life.

You owe it to yourself to not worry about them.

Do not worry at all.

(j.a.r.)