Fingers numb with cold
the stars winking above
I kissed you
and tasted juicy Georgia peaches,
flushed pink like your cheeks
and sweet as anything.
The succulent taste coated my tongue
and I wanted more.
I felt you hesitate when I pulled you closer
but I kept my lips soft and exploring
so as to not scare you away.
My fingers wound into the curls
against your warm scalp.
They moved along
grasping at the little ringlets at the nape
of your neck
and you shivered.
You pulled away,
and buried your face into my neck.
Your breath against my skin
reminded me of
the warm Florida coast,
the sun radiant and bright
and the breezes humid.
I felt your heart beat
against me as the lull of the tide,
and as you blinked
your eyelashes
fluttered on my skin
like wind-kicked sand.

This could be the moment,
I thought.
This could be the moment
I fall in love.

Time should mean more to me,
I know.
I shouldn't write about what I've barely
come to understand,
but you, my love,
make words so easy
music so sweet.

Chivalry isn't exactly dead, not yet
and I can't help but think about
properly courting you,
stealing kisses when our escort isn't
paying attention
or writing you disgustingly cheesy love letters
that sound nothing like me.

Despite the short time
I've known you,
I catch myself thinking
about what it might be like.
If the world would be so kind
if Fate wouldn't intervene
if I could get to keep you.
My own little slice of paradise,
of heaven.

I must confess I'm not much of a
believer in what I can't see or feel
but you
pop questions into my head
abut even that.
How can there not be
something inherently pure and good
when you're with me?
How can I not believe
that we were meant for something more
when you feel so right?

Our lives have not been fair,
this I know.
But I think my hardship
might have been worth it
if they brought me to you.

My Grandmother's perfume
was always as sweet as the fruit
she loved to share with me
its rinds thrown from the deck.
We watched as the deer came out
to feast on the skins.

Her perfume came
in beautiful crystal
and her collection spread
all over the bathroom.
She hummed as she got ready
her song beautiful like the hummingbirds
we would fill a feeder full of nectar for.
And as we ate at the small wooden table,
she would whisper,
"Look, my love! Our friends have arrived."
and the hummingbirds would sip from the feeder.
I always felt that they were her kin,
those hummingbirds.
But it would not be a stretch
for my Nana to be blood
with all the beautiful things.

She showed me how
to pluck a honeysuckle flower
and extract the nectar carefully
so I would taste a drop.
In the springtime,
butterflies would flock to that bush,
and we watched from a distance.

She taught me
where the daddy-longlegs liked to nest
and reminded me that they
were harmless.
I picked the wildflowers for her
and she would place the little arrangments
in water on the table.

My Nana would make me coffee
so sweet I could barely drink it
but I did
because the sweetness was just as sweet
as her.

I loved spending time with her,
even if it was just a phone call.
The number 2 pad on my mom's
ugly orange phone
was my Nana's speed dial.
I called her every day.
Every day.
She would light up when
she heard my voice
and I would chatter on about
anything and everything I could think of.

I still remember
the songs she used to sing to me
when it was time for bed
and I was wide awake.
"I love you,
a bushel and a peck.
A hug around the neck,
and a barrel and a heap
and I'm talking in my sleep
about you."

My Nana
doesn't remember the words now
but as long as I have
a voice to sing with,
I will sing for her.
As long as I have hands,
I will write for her.
And as long as I have a heart,
I will love her.
Even after the day,
she doesn't remember me.
Even after the day
she doesn't see my face
and know who I am.
Even after the day
she doesn't know she ever loved me.

The sky is old, it is tired.
It is aching.

The sky is bruised.
It is blackest blue and deepest blood purple.
It is tearing and writhing and mashing.
It is molded by someone
who knows not of their own power for desire.

It is being destroyed and created at the same time,
it is being pushed and pulled and grabbed
by hands who have known little of gentleness
and have been overcome by violence
but are trying to be soothing.

Hands made for wielding swords
steadfast give up when attempting to weave flowers together.

But he has not given up.

He is immobilized-
lost in his own despair and pain
as he tries to create.
He is searching through things he doesn't quite understand
searching through himself
and his own power he has left untapped for many a year.

He is trying-
hoping to help build a world
where love knows no bounds
and hate is only as strong as those
feeble hearts who use it.

The End of Time has already passed,
and no one can see past it
no one knows whether he will succeed.
But they do know
that he will continue to try
to press on
until the last whisper of his soul is gone from this world.

I am waiting for the day
when we can all celebrate
as one people
united behind
he who tore the sky
and lifted it up again,
anew.

If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you. I know this to be true, even if the abyss is not necessarily anything outside myself. The abyss is simply, The Abyss. It is not within me or without me, it is just being. And I do gaze into it. I don't really take this to mean that I will become like my hates or enemies, as I believe that I have always been what I hate- my own worst enemy. I take this to say that The Abyss, for however long I look into it, also looks into me. It leaves marks on my soul; deep gouges made with stained black talons. The Abyss is many things, and also nothing at the same time. It is darkness, that is a given, it is also The End. It is The Apocalypse, it is The End of Time. The Abyss is the complete-stop-of-everything. Some people even believe that the surging water-deep of a literal abyss is Hell itself, though I think I know better. The Abyss is not Hell, because when your soul is released from your vessel, and you of course have committed sin, you do not go to The Abyss. Your soul does not forever reside in the Nothingness of The Abyss, your soul does not belong to it unless it belongs to you. Even so, after looking into The Abyss for a long period of time, it is hard to shake the feeling of its eyes on you. It can linger for days, and the restless, dreamless state that those eyes leave you in is hard to leave behind. As someone who is constantly staring into The Abyss, I find that it never quite leaves me. It's almost as if The Abyss has left some part of it inside me, within my very being. I can't hope to root it out without never seeing into The Abyss ever again, and I don't imagine that will happen any time soon. The Abyss has been a... comfort to me. The promise of Nothingness, of simply Not Being, has always appealed to me. This existence of mine has not been an easy one, but it has been growing on me. Even with the promise of Nothingness, I think that I will try and stay Existing for as long as I can. Existing has its perks of course. I get to think and feel and experience, and part of that Feeling is Love, which I believe may be the most important one of all. What is there, without Love?

That, I believe, is what The Abyss actually is. Lack of Love.

Hiding in my stomach
where no one can find her
is a beast.

She's a shapeshifter, this monster.
Sometimes her skin is leathery
and membranous,
and wings stretch where her arms used to be.

Sometimes she's a mass of fur and
horns and talons.
Sometimes she's just a fog of darkness
leaking into the world.

But she never lets me forget
that she's there.
When I look into the mirror, I see her.
I'll touch my face
and find it utterly human,
and yet my reflection is a leviathan.
A demon.
She used to terrify me,
make me sweat and shake from fear.

But I've come to accept
that this is what I am.
A monster
whose teeth are stained with blood
of mine and others.
I can never brush them clean.

As I inspected the witch's cottage,
my gaze fell upon a curious looking
jar on a shelf.
It was full of eyes.

The witch noticed, or sensed,
my discomfort
and simply said,
"The eyes contain the soul."

For the rest of the day,
I sat on the creaking floor
and examined each eye.
They appeared to be glass,
but I knew that was likely a rouse.

So, with kitchen cleaning gloves
I fished the next eye out of
the Mason jar and lifted it up to my own.

It was about as large as the others,
but molten honey colored,
and the iris took up so much space,
while the pupil was very small.
I turned to the witch, the eye still in hand.

"What kind of eye is this?" I asked,
showing the eye to her.
She pried it out of my grasp and felt
all over it, her eyes closed.

"It belonged to an elephant." she said,
handing it back to me.
Upon seeing the look on my face, she clarified,
"It died of natural causes, and I never ask for them.
They find their way to me."

I considered this.
"What other kind of eyes do you have?"
The witch smiled, and led me into another room,
full of jars on shelves.
This time they were organized, labeled with
the name of the creature.

Mouth open in awe,
I looked around the room in wonder.
The eyes ranged from human,
to elephant, to squid.
There were so many different sizes
and colors.
The labels told me the creature,
and some of them I had never heard of.

"Do they really hold the soul?"
The witch nodded.

"Each of these eyes belonged to a different living being,
who is now gone.
Their eyes, or souls, rather
find their way to me.
I keep them safe until the soul is ready
to be used in a vessel again."

I frowned.
"So, one day, all these will be gone?"
She nodded again.

"And a new set will take its place."
The witch patted the top of my head
with her weathered hand.
"Someday, you'll be the one to watch over
the souls.
It'll be up to you
to keep them away from harm."

Carefully, I put the elephant's eye
in the jar and ******* the lid closed.

Now I wait for my turn
to keep the souls safe.