'My body normally wouldn't shiver that way,
it is because your fingers touched me.
You gave me glitters and tunes I never experienced.
I felt like waves of water crushing into land.
We would travel to Paris and Rome and Prague.
With glistening eyes you walked and danced around my presence.
That voice of yours sounded like music and felt like poems.
I was surrounded with lies, but I didn't care.
Lies you want to hear, said the magazines lying on my lap.
Take me to the promised cities. Take me there in your arms.
I kissed that muscular neck hundred times,
but you wiped those kissed away.
I sprayed my writs, neck and ******* with Chanel.
Hoping you would touch me like that again.
But you didn't.
You left me there standing, watching thin air turning blue.
I always felt so beautiful around you.
Never leaving you was the first lie you told.
And the best.
There was a moment that I really believed in it.
Believed in you.'

...unless it's with me.

Dating you is anti-climatic
and I'd be ****** if I ever
succumb to a part of me
begging to be cut loose from you.

I don't want to be swallowed by
the euphoria derived from
vintage pictures and videos;
I know that the saccharine
comfort will be both
short-lived and lachrymose.

I don't want to have to
flip through your new pictures daily,
searching for remnants of the love we shared
through the new love you'd then be experiencing.

Usually,
I'd wish nothing but the best
but I want the worse for you.

My mental is too detrimental
to handle you and another.
I don't want to wake up
from constant nightmares
leaving my stomach tied in knots
you'd only see on TV.

I don't want to sit at family dinners alone
when you were suppose to be there with me.
I don't want to have to look at chocolate desserts
and remember how it's your favorite
so although I detest chocolate,
I eat it anyway to somehow
suppress the feeling of you not being there.

I don't want to watch you fall in love with another.
You carry a part of me
every time you're apart from me
and I'd rather you cheat
than to follow what seems like tradition
and leave.

I don't want to watch you fall in love with another.
I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve
and I'm down on both knees
pleading please,
oh please

I don't want to watch you fall in love
...unless it's with me.

She smelled of burned skin and sunscreen
And as I watched every grain of sand
Find its way past
Endless legs and golden hair
I couldn't help myself but wonder
If her lips would taste like seasalt
With a touch of honey ***

We met standing in line at a store
To pay for our groceries and such.
I happened we both reached
At the same time and touched.
We set to talking about things
Like Jung and synchronicity.
We easily continued our talking
About quirks and idiosyncrasies.

He asked questions about me
And seemed suitably charmed.
I answered them thoughtlessly.
I was precisely that disarmed.
He never took his eyes off me
Staring into my eyes, polite.
It felt not only delightful and warm,
It felt perfectly, comfortably right.

I found myself catching my breath;
Was he possibly flirting with me?
I knew just how this usually went
And how disappointing it could be.
I cautioned myself not to jump;
Conclusions can be dangerously high.
What if he is just a nice fellow;
A polite and wildly handsome guy.

So, I continued in the same vein.
I asked questions of his life.
I wanted him to get it over with
And tell me all about his wife.
But he responded with wonderful stuff
About his hobby rappelling rocks.
Then he did something unexpected
That shocked me down to my socks.

He reached over, put his hand on mine
And asked me if I were promised;
Did I have some other guy in my life.
Suddenly, no longer Doubting Thomas
I told him I was single and free as a bird
He squeezed my hand and smiled
He turned my hand over and asked me
If we could go for a ride for a while.

I will cease this tiny story right here
Because the rest of the tale was hot
And while I had the fun of those days
You either had your own or not.
But let it suffice to say to you here
He make this guy deliriously glad
For the love, the heat and the memories
Like I had never before had.

A young man with tattoos
walked in to the café.
He examined two chairs
at the empty table
in front of me.
He cupped his chin with one hand.
He silently compared the older chair
with the torn, dilapidated seat cushion
to the newer chair that still had a black metallic shine.
He picked up the beaten chair
and carried it to the table behind me
to join his friends.

That’s how we define ourselves,
our class, our place in the world.
Some people believe they deserve
the best seat in the house.
Others believe themselves second class,
commoners whose insecurities run rampant.
We do it to ourselves.

No matter which seat we take,
every one of us
knows love and hate.
We all fight and struggle.
We are all unique.
We are all the same.