I want to see her blink
I want to feel the touch
The seaming of her skin
Hand in hand, its clutch.

The texture of her hair
Between my finger tips
Your words in my ear
The magnetism, your lips

i used to cradle her bleach-cracked hands in mine
and decode the stardust resting within her fingerprints
     up until the day that i lost touch with the art of reading braille
     and she stopped slinging tall-tales for me to fetch
and rest the plot-twist at her feet

often in the post-script
i'd find my train of thought highjacked by the sunlight illuminating the rainbow of earth-tones ablaze
in her frizz-ridden curls
as if she'd been washing her hair with the damaged case of beer
she'd gotten for half-price at liqour depot
     she never did quit drinking
          but neither did i

at least we tried

though sometimes
in the middle of the night when nothing was alright
and we'd barely survived another fight
her face would catch my glance
cast aglow by a flood of lava-lamp light
    
     the sea of freckles resting at the crest of her cheeks
     rose lips perma-pursed in half tilt
     her resting heart-rate so high that i could almost see it
          pirouetting within her chest

it was then that i'd love her best
     amidst the ruins of who we were
     just moments before

We were lying on the ground
Listening to the sound of driftwood
Cascading in the turquoise river
Taking in the beauty of the stars
While an orchestra of whippoorwills
And katydids sung the birds to sleep
We listened as the owls hooted in the darkness
And tree frogs warned us that spring is here
The beauty of that spring night
The softness of that tender grass
Like a pillow against my head
The fragrance of dewy lavender
Still lingers with me in my mind
Creating such a pleasant scene
As soothing as music to the soul
Creating such beautiful dreams
That dance inside my head at night

*~Marian~

It's sad
the empty holes
forming in a heart
cannot be filled
with anything else
but what was there
before they were
empty

Do you remember that one time we both just happened to stay up until 4:00 in the morning?
Or that time you tried to walk past me but our small talk got too big and we ended up sitting separated by four thousand miles and an electrical outlet?

Do you remember that one time when our elbows touched for almost a second at dinner, but neither of us said anything?
Or that time I felt like watching that TV show you love and accidentally left my door open and you felt like watching for awhile and punched my arm when I pointed out how a terrorist wouldn't be able to activate an atomic bomb
from
like
four thousand miles underground?

Do you remember how your voice shook with laughter when I told you I was flirting with you?
How it shook like a seismograph on the white cliffs of Dover,
How it shook like a tambourine
Like a dreidel
or a top?

Do you remember how the fire leapt and the mountains slammed and the thunder clapped more fervently than a bunch of liberals watching a mariachi band?
or has my imagination gotten the best of me once again?

Come with me, I said, and no one knew
where, or how my pain throbbed,
no carnations or barcaroles for me,
only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.
O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!

That is why when I heard your voice repeat
Come with me, it was as if you had let loose
the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine

the geysers flooding from deep in its vault:
in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,
of blood and carnations, of rock and scald.