The acidic flavor
of ink
faded on paper
yellowed with
experience
that only comes from
watching the years
pass you by -

The alacrity
of the smell
burning into your
brain with every
overused idea
presented to you
in an outdated
medium -

The solidity
offered by the
weight in your hands
and snatched away
by the perceived
meaning
we award to the words
of someone whom
you have never met
and do not know -

The complacency
you feel as you
carelessly
flip open the pages,
unaware of the glue
crumbling slowly
to nothing
from too many readers
who simply did not
understand –

Despite -
or perhaps because of –
this desperation to speak,
I am not ready to listen.

And so I set the book back
and walk to another shelf
knowing that I
was not ready
to understand
what the book wanted to tell me.
I did not know
if I ever would be.

Your smile
tastes of mint smoke.
It’s refreshing
against the taste of my tears
and the drink you gave me
to stop them.
Your eyes
trace their way down
my body
seeing
knowing
touching
every little sweet spot
long forgotten.
Your hands
melt into mine;
a connection revisited.
And for a moment
I see in your gaze
that (love lust longing) we shared.
I blink
and it is gone
in the moonlight
and blinking light
from your clock.
So I close my eyes
and let the smell of tobacco
in your hair
and the smile against my lips
bring me
to a dark connection
I know far too well.
We can be together.
Just one more time.
Just for tonight.

I bent at the waist
to pluck a flower
and fell into
the sun-warmed grass.
There was laughter
in his kiss
as he tucked that flower
into my hair.
I was anointed
queen of the meadow
goddess of sunlight
and flowers
empress of summertime.
His fingers brushed by
electric against
my blood-rushed cheeks
and I closed my eyes
for just a moment
and forgot
that those same fingers
had left their mark
with screams
and bruises.
I gave it up
for a kiss
and that beautiful smile.
It was
worth it.
He
was worth
everything.

I sat with him
gazed in his warm brown eyes
as he told me of
misunderstood philosophy
and anarcho-capitalism
and being an
agnostic vegan
out of boredom with his own
complacency.
And he pulled his pocket watch
out of his blazer
to check the time
but I could have told him
it would read half past
the debonair gentleman
and the social radical -
so, almost to the overpriveleged apathy
of our lives.
But I kept quiet.
I always did like a rebel.

There is a ring
a stained circle
of mahogany
where her mug sat
for too long
while mindless images
flashed across the room.
There is a swatch of carpet
two shades darker than the rest
where we ignored
the spilled coffee
making itself famous to the fibers
There are half-remembered echoes
and reverberations
of voices raised in anger
over a topic long forgotten
though
the walls remember.
There is a faint,
almost nothing,
trace of her perfume
on the blanket she cried into
and threw at me
as a parting blow.

Now there are only the mindless images,
remembered reverberations,
and a ring marring the table.

The first bite of fruit
is always the hardest.
To break that perfection
to sink your teeth in through the skin
is a task
(not simple)
far too easy.
It will
never
be the same.
You can look at the other side
and imagine
it kept it’s perfection.
But inevitably
after that first bite
the crisp white insides
begin to brown
and rot.

I remember
(as though it were yesterday,
though it was far longer ago) -
He was clean shaven
with sparkling hazel eyes
and far more worldly than I.

He remembers
(when pressed)
I wore a skirt
that was just barely too short
and my legs shook from cold
as we talked.

I remember
(better on some days than others)
his love for alternative rock
and his fascination
with rebelling quietly
against social norms.
He liked to cook,
he told me -
The Anarchist Cookbook -
and laughed.

He remembers
(without hesitation)
the way my eyes
softened just before
our lips first touched
and how my hair
in the breeze
caught the fading sunlight.

I remember
(without fail)
the late night screams
in frustration of his
hatred of gender bias
and his inability to ever
not be brutally
honest.

He remembers
(with distinct pleasure)
the mid-day screams
of passion
and the feeling
of my skin against his;
my breath on his cheek.

I envy
the way he can
focus
on remembering
only the good;
albeit none of the
substance.