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There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain—
’Tis Pain’s Successor—When the Soul
Has suffered all it can—

A Drowsiness—diffuses—
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousness—
As Mists—obliterate a Crag.

The Surgeon—does not blanch—at pain
His Habit—is severe—
But tell him that it ceased to feel—
The Creature lying there—

And he will tell you—skill is late—
A Mightier than He—
Has ministered before Him—
There’s no Vitality.

Until today, I never understood heartache.

I never understood that thinking about you (how the thoughts come unbidden yet so welcome entrancing encompassing dizzying worrying wonderful) -
your name
your voice - strong and low, speaking softly, only for me
the thickness of your hair, the way it feels against my fingers when I hold your head in my hands
the way your skin tastes after a night of making love
the warmth of your hands and your mouth and your laugh
your scent, that somehow reminds me of both my childhood and times and places I have never known

the feeling of you inside me, molded close and perfect, and the way you toss your head and ***** up your eyes while we're at our peak, as if I were the one who was so unmissable

- could make my insides curl and twist so hard that I have to stop what I'm doing, set down my glass or pen, stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

I am drowning in you, taking in deep lungfuls of you, absorbing you into my bloodstream.
The sweetest little death I could ever imagine.

thin pink lips
and dark brown eyes
strong back
and strong features

i want your arms
wrapped around me
i want your heart
to be all mine

sweet words
and loving gazes
heart felt letters
and random gifts

i want your love
and your loving shares
i want your heart
to be all mine

Injuries

My ankles are burned left and right, and my knees are probably scraped somewhere. I sit straight, not to be polite, but because my spine muscles were ripped—in a car wreck. Everyone was all right. But I still feel it when it rains.

And since I was eleven, my wrist snaps like this SNAP Every. Day.

And my cat has scratched me one too many times. Lovers see my skinned back, and the scars of my arm or the twitch behind my left eye. But no one notices my split *******, the one I broke in half. And I have no scar where my heart shattered in my late teens. Or on my lips from bile on that day, this day, yesterday, or tomorrow.

You cannot see the death of my loved ones from my skin, and my ears don’t bleed from broken promises. My eyes aren’t forever affected by the tears that felt like forever, and my voice doesn’t sound different because I screamed at her one too many times.

I’m not dead because someone else is dead, but sometimes my heart doesn’t feel like it’s there as my injuries reflect my body, they reflect nothing inside.

...

I read at the University of Kansas during their Undergraduate Reading Series. Read more about this event here:

http://shannonathompson.com/2013/02/11/my-undergraduate-reading/

The cruel Moon hangs out of reach
Up above the shadowy beech.
Her face is stupid, but her eye
Is small and sharp and very sly.
Nurse says the Moon can drive you mad?
No, that’s a silly story, lad!
Though she be angry, though she would
Destroy all England if she could,
Yet think, what damage can she do
Hanging there so far from you?
Don’t heed what frightened nurses say:
Moons hang much too far away.