maybe we expected the dishes
to be this *****
maybe we demanded of the willpower
yanked from the exact place
of everything and joined by just
                             our fingernails
                             busy carrying our pails
                             up the hill
                             to fetch a bottle of
                             wine.


     Only to find ourselves stumbling
                           back up the hill for
                                               more.

Out with the old, in with the new
I'm conforming, transforming
but it will never be for you
It's written in between the lines
                       on my lips
                        and in the cards
but I still am unsure how to read
the prophetic foreshadowing that will lead
me to the streaming feed
of water

And I'm queasy, uneasy
because the world is changing
rearranging
quicker than I can run, trip, and
fall on my knees
I am the autumn leaves
testing out new colors before giving in
                                                            decaying into the ground
                                                            allowing my molecules
to melt and morph
               and flip and turn
                                and die and create
                                                 and help my bones to permeate

Oh Lord,
help me to allow the vines
to weave in and out of the holes in my bones
growing new blossoms that release an aroma of "death"

Remember when the rain was beating on the windows
blurring out the parking lot surrounding us;
secluding, isolating us inside steamy windows.
Between curfews and the length of the "movie"
we weren't wasting any time.

Clothes came off quickly like the breaths we gave each other

inhale       exhale      inhale      exhale

it was a collaborative effort.

Your lips tasted like the mountain dew in the front seat
and my breath tasted vulnerable on your tongue.
We gave each other all we were willing to give
and it was innocent and it was impulsiveness, over and over,
and it was the light in our eyes
               the designs on our fingertips
               that called the shots.

fast forward

There is still rain tapping on the widows,
but it's not fully blurring out the man walking to his car 100 feet away.
Keeping track of our routine time limit
we knew the moves
we knew the drills.

But apparently I'm not so "innocent" anymore and that bothers you.
I am no longer on the same page as you and I no longer hold your same perspective.
Or maybe I'm just realizing that they were always different.

But you can no longer seem to match my breathing.
You can no longer seem to draw the same entrancing pictures
on the inside of my cheek.
Who knows when you stopped fully caring,
but your radiating desires won't let you stop touching me.
Won't let you say that you no longer feel the warmth our bodies ignited.

And you thought I wouldn't notice, but I **** well did.

I could tell from the flat-soda taste of your lips  
               from the rough, jagged edges of your fingertips
but was still offering you my own.
I saw it coming, but
was still offering you parts of me.

Hell, I probably would've given you everything, if you had asked.


now as I sit here watching my "innocence"
continue to disappear like wisps of smoke
I can't decide if I truly regret letting it leave

from innocence to individuality
I can't decide if I ruined something good
or decided I wanted something better.

Now don't get me wrong,
what we had was good.
It was young and it was new
but it was fragile and it grew
in two opposite directions
and lets face it, neither of us had a map
neither of us knew how to get back on the track
that we thought we wanted.
Let's face it, neither of us remembered
to bring along a bottle of mountain dew
so that we could pretend nothing had changed
so that we could pretend that we didn't think that
we deserved better.