The subtle turn of neck
Exposed skin, collarbone shown
Shoulder, slender, hand, in air
Slight smile, red lips
Dimples that crunch the corner of cheeks
Crossed legs; hairless
Soft ankle, gentle foot
The arching bridge
Of the sole
Timid fingers, curled
Ready to point
Ready to pluck
Heartstrings.

Company; friends
Distance
It is unfair.

I think I would understand
If it were outwardly cruel
But such heartaches speak
In quiet undulations,
Hard to catch inclinations,
A half-moment,
A heartbeat,
A second too late to take back
The things you did not say
When they asked about
The weather or your new shoes.

The shoulder shrug
The empty bus
The hands held
At a distance
Amidst crowds
For anyone to see
It was enough to make you think
Why be so honest
How can someone be so brash
Without saying a word.

It comes suddenly
After it’s easy to realize
They never looked
They did not listen
Or even read
It did not occur because
Value is relative,
It does not matter,
People are busy
Although you may write.

DIGESTION
When the temperature is raised
Particles gain kinetic energy
And collide at a greater frequency.
The more particles that collide
The chances of a reaction occurring increases.
How many times have elbows rubbed
In hallways, no matter how crowded
Yet nothing happens,
Nothing precipitates,
Not even a cough
Or a wandering shot
From the corner of their eyes.
People pass
By or away
And yet hallways are still full;
Full of thoughts of other people
Full of longing
Full of the people who are missing.

USE OF ELECTROLYTE
The addition of an electrolyte
Reduces the coulombic repulsion
Produced by a solution’s ionic atmosphere;
An electrolyte allows ions to interact more freely.
A full bus is void of tension.
A stranger who writes letters everyday,
But crumples the paper before finishing
Is completed by the person
Who eagerly awaits a text on their phone.
A person with a bouquet of flowers
Catches the eye of someone lost in thought.
So many people who compliment one another,
Or an other,
Sit idly on a moving bus
Separated only by people
Who, too, are separated from their second piece.
You meet such people everyday
Who could have been,
Yet are not.

CO-PRECIPITATION
Something that is generally avoided.
An impurity that co-precipitates with the product
Can cause an overestimation of analyte.
Impurities can be caught within
The crystal lattice structure of the compound
Or trapped inside a growing crystal.
It may be hard to understand
Such thoughts still seem foreign
But I, too, have things that I remember dearly.
They are wrapped up with
Lists of groceries, and formulas
About distance and its relation to
Speed and its change over time.
It is all just things that have
Come to pass.
Such memories are hard to keep
When there is only one who articulates them,
But I am sure
Perhaps years from now
You’ll catch yourself thinking
For a split second
And then go about your day.

PEPTIZATION  
The breaking up of precipitate
Due the loss of electrolyte
Which strengthens the ionic atmosphere
Around the analyte.
In line at a bus stop
A glimpse is caught
Of the oncoming bus
And people shuffle
As the line moves up.
Never again
Can the same people
Line up the same way
For the same bus
We are too fragile
To construct ourselves in such a way
Where we can meet again.
Fate is too frail
Someone must leave
Leaves must fall
But someone always stays.

Ambiguity and indecision
Allows room for
You and I.
When I write you and
I
The emphasis is put on me.
I am put in isolation
To exaggerate that I am isolated.
When I write
You and I
The exaggeration is that we are separate from the text,
Thus one entity amidst the rest of the paper.
The reader,
When reading aloud,
Puts an emphasis on
You then I.
You are brought to the foreground immediately
And I follow right after.
You, thus I.

Here a relationship is formed
And is seen clearly between
You and I
And
You and
I.
Similarly you and       I
Achieves a similar sentiment
But suggests a different context.
I am looking afar at you
But the position of distance is still maintained.
It is, therefore,
Subtlety that gives meaning
To simple gestures.

The establishment of position between
You and I
Then must depend on subtleties as well.
Ambiguity gives room to grow
But a name
Can only stifle it.
When should things be taken literally
When part of poetry
Is to write in exaggerations.
I don’t know how to talk to you
I and you.
You and I.
Therefore I will take your word for it
And stop there.

He turns to look for her in bed
And does not find her there
He rushes to the barnhouse shed
To find a toppled chair

And hanging from the ceiling beam
He finds two longing eyes
Two eyes too young to yell and scream;
Two eyes that did not cry.

Not stunned nor torn, the boy walked forth
To cleanly cut the rope
And brought her gently down to earth
To clean her off with soap.

Not here to dwell, not anymore
The boy had said aloud
With her on back he closed the door
Without making a sound.

A wonderful set of coincidences occur one after the other,
Allowing a once in a lifetime chance to cross paths
But no matter how much they deserve to meet
These two must never do so.
These individuals litter bus stops and late night trains,
They aggregate during the rain
And disperse as the crosswalk signals to cross,
They find solace in solitude,
And comfort in crowds,
And would most likely tell their life story to a stranger,
But find it difficult to confide in a friend.
They catch glimpses of others through windows as they pass by
And, when found, are always focused on something else,
They trip on escalators when rushing for the next train,
They chase buses but give up half way through,
They lament a lost umbrella,
But rarely mourn the lost opportunity
Whisked away by a bus just leaving the terminal,
Or captured perfectly, like a portrait, in storefront windows.
They read books in transit and rarely look up,
They stare longingly in space, often focusing on another person’s face without knowing,
They eagerly await text messages
And check emails frequently.
All of these people are waiting,
And in fact,
Are waiting together,
Collectively, for someone else.
Although the circumstances that had brought them all together
Were nothing short of extraordinary,
It is just a normal day.
A quick glance around confirms it,
And away they go,
On night trains that someone else had just missed by a minute.
In this sense,
Cruelty seems unusually fair,
And thus why they must never meet.

I sometimes think of a girl who wished to die at sea
The sea, I see, which saw her drift away so lifelessly.
Not long ago we had been doomed to die a death in bed
But now the ocean waves careen above our heads instead
She stole my heart, I stole a car, and then just like that we’re gone
We escaped from the hospital, our days spent there were done.
She would not last without her meds and I was getting sick
So to the coast was where to go, and we had to get there quick.
Along the ride, she said to me, in the year two thousand five,
“Looking at all the scenery, it kind of makes you feel alive”
At the beach, we both looked on and made no qualms with death
For there are no prayers to be said if you are out of breath
She smiled at me and I at her, and then it was time to go
She swam out with a happy face, that is all I know

she would not look me in the eyes
as i pretend to be
the person whom she coveted;
the man she used to see

nor night or day, will I think less
of her as time goes on
yet he remains inside her head
from dusk to break of dawn

perhaps, i think, in solitude
she will move on from him,
but it is i that she neglects
and leaves upon a whim

one day he showed up at our door
much to her surprise
and outlined our last couple days
before our grand demise

who would have thought that she
would try to run away
and have the courage to **** me
on the exact same day?

alas, ‘tis not a fairy tale,
she would not get her way,
for the same day that I had died,
she, too, would pass away

our daughter whom shall wake alone
when the night is done
in shock will find the corpses of
her beloved ones

what will she think of this mess
when she looks down to see
the blood and her lifeless parents
engulfed in tragedy

you see, the man who had shown up
dropped by to say hello,
my wife, who still had loved this man,
did not want him to go.

so that same night, she called to me
and said she would leave soon,
to pursue the man who had left,
under the the naked moon.

i tried to talk her out of it,
But she would not listen,
and as we started to argue,
her tears would then glisten

in rage, she grabbed a nearby knife
and lunged at my bare neck
but in the process, fallen down
and missed me by a thread.

at this time, she had broke down
and would not stop crying
then turned the knife onto herself
and died where i was lying.

I took the knife, and turned it to
myself as i had sobbed
Would I let my wife go alone
To Hell? is what i thought

But is it not somewhat funny
Attempted homocide
Turned tragically into what was
A double suicide.