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 hate her -
that girl
in the mirror.
The one
who mocks me
with her
empty
mercurial gaze
and
that tempting smile
as shows me
every
tiny
flaw
and promises me
perfection.
I hate how
impossible
it is to
reconcile
myself
with that girl
I want to see
in the mirror.
I hate that she
cannot
fight this battle
for me.
I hate
that I will never
be that beautiful.

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.

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.

Laughter drips
from your eyes -
honey
to my malnourished soul
and light
of my hopes.

Fondness glows
right out of me
a promise
and an apology
to your too-long darkened
smile.

Those same eyes
light up
every time
at the electricity
of skin on skin.
That same glow
is slightly rosier
at every compliment
or simply
a moment.

Together we could
light the room
on fire.

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.

We were
together
once.
Bathed in
the silver light
of the moon
and the
star's
understanding shine.
Together
in a way
that,
lit by a
flickering
streetlamp
and reflections
in the asphalt,
would be
so seedy.

Thank God
We
aren't like that.

On a street corner?
Really.
Learn some
decency.

But as we pass
and the streetlamp
flickers
out of view -
I look into it's
false flame
and
for a moment
feel a star
die.

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.

He wouldn't laugh
if he knew
how much of
me
still belonged
to him.

He would close his eyes
(almost -
is that -
regret?
desire?
disappointment?)
if he understood
how my inspiration
is all
derived
from stolen glimpses
of that
stupid smirk.

He would ****
his head -
say my name
(reproachfully?
regretfully?
desperately?)
if he could
feel
himself in
every word
I write.

Though I wonder
would the
disapproval
be for my feelings?
Or simply
for the way I
romanticize them?

The taste of
licorice
and citron *****
haunts
every dream I have

and I can still smell
your perfume
on my shoulder.

A phantom
follows me -
your hand on my side
warm lips on my cheek
the string of cool metal
tied around my finger -

I don’t know
how to be
alone
without you.

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 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.

I need you tonight.
I need it.
To be wrapped
in your arms
entagled
in the most
comforting
of knots.
My head fitting
perfectly
in that spot
between your neck
and shoulder.

Just the right kind of
tiny,
your eyes smile.
Your hands
squeezing my sides
just because
you like the way I squeak
and giggle
and fuss.

That intimacy
I thought
would always
make me panic.
But somehow
your sighs
etched into
my skin
made it okay.

Do you still find
red hair
on your sheets?

I wish
it was still
mine.

I dreamt last night
that I had
to sew a blanket
with a giant seam
straight down the middle.

The fabric was patterned
with the galaxies
swirling and whirling and shooting by;
changing
every second.

 My friends
were all around
to help me
but lifeless -
automatons sewing
blanket after perfect blanket
all the while
watching me
with unseeing eyes.

And as I sewed
one by one
they disappeared
until I was alone
with my starry blanket
and it’s giant seam.

I looked at it
to admire my work,
but could not stand the silence
or the
emptiness.

When before my eyes
the seam was torn apart
but a shooting star
and into that hole in the galaxy
was where i walked
in search of something new.

I walked into the seam
of my giant blanket
and what I found;
what I found was magical
beautiful
the most breath-taking vision
of perfect
tragic
loveliness -
but I only know
because when I awoke
I was crying
and could not remember.

Ink flows from your fingers
free as falling rain
scripted words
your hands were born to say.

Gilded words drip out your mouth
like morning dew from leaves -
silver stories
your tongue was made to tell.

Lines of prose haunt your eyes -
a whisper on the wind,
things you dare not speak -
too much a part of you to know.

Beautiful, endless, flawless language
in everything you are
seeps out of you
as music from a harp.

Unending anguish hides in your words -
invisible in plain sight.
There for everyone to see,
but no one to acknowledge.

Your soul goes into the words
and you are left alone.

Maybe
I had one hit too many.
That would explain
my bra on the floor
my hand on your chest
the heavy breathing
of your desire.
I can’t
you breathe out
between bites on my neck.
I know.
This is wrong.
I moan
as our lips fuse together.
Probably.

In my mind
I know better
than to listen
to what my body is telling me
in the darkness of your room
with the fire
of your skin
against mine.

In your eyes
is the expectation
of regret
and your lack of concern
as you
trace
the curves
beneath you.

But under those sheets
is the knowledge
that nothing will -
Nothing can
come between us.

Not tonight.

History is not
simply
the dates
and battles
buildings
and famous names
associated
merely with an
idea
or occurance.

History is not
years
lumped into
eras -
not general greatness
or the greatness
of generals.

It is
the wool
lovingly spun
by a mother’s hand
and stained
by a full day’s
honest labor.
It is the
pealing
of laughter
and church bells
in an untouched
meadow
of flowers
wild in every sense.

It is
stolen moments
in a hayloft
or on the bank of a river.
It is the heat
of the sun
beating down
on the shoulders
of a man
doing everything he can
to make it.

History
is in all
the moments
of lives
of people -
simply
people.

The world may change
but humanity is
constant.

You take pride
in the fact
that you
can make me
scream
your name.

I hate that.
I want to deny it
just to get rid
of that stupid smirk
and knowing gleam
in your eye.

Although
I suppose
the ecstasy
(which spawns
all my
inspiration)
our *** life
supplies me with
means I really
shouldn't complain.

You're just a little too
cocky
for my taste.

The sense are suspect
which means
I cannot trust

(your hands tracing
my face
your lips brushing
my hair
the way you cling
to me)

you. There is
no way
to trust that you
are touching
me.
(I touch you as
you touch me
limbs entangled
unerringly innocent
the simplest form
of contact.)

My senses are
suspect
and so I may
reasonably doubt
everything
about you.

But my mind is true
and so
even though
I do not know
if you exist -
I know
(and can trust)
that I love you.

I wish you knew -
No.
Really, I don’t want you
to know.

If only I could tell -
But if
I’m being honest,
telling is half
the problem.

Do you ever wonder -
Don’t tell me.
The idea of what
you might think
terrifies me.

I like to imagine…
Not that.
Mostly just
that I knew how to make you
understand
or how
to understand myself.

The way you hold me close
a star bursting
in the middle of the night -

nobody even knows it is there
until it is gone.
Until it destroys itself
in white hot
all consuming
flame

that no one even notices.
No one misses the tiny little star
that just sparkled a little bit -
no name
no face
no pattern
just it’s own little sparkle.

And now it is gone.
Now it has destroyed
the world around it
and continues to destroy
everything it touches -
a black hole
endlessly deep
and endlessly selfish.

You kiss my forehead.
You really shouldn’t -
but you’re already ****** in.