The leaves are falling outside, like harbingers of
a season filled with warmth in colours and
cold winds, with pumpkin spice and blankets
and pillow forts, and the idea that endings
are beginnings, to the patient ones.
I love the golden sun and sweater days of Autumn,
love the fading freckles and the laughter lines
it paints on my face, and the silent knowledge that,
among candlelight and the smell of coffee,
everything comes alive. My fingers tangle in
a hand-knitted sleeve, and hot tea warms me
from the inside, until I am like soft caramel.
His fingers brush my skin and linger, like
a promise made and meant and kept.

Red lips curl watching Earl Grey unfold in clouds inside a cup
and brown eyes flicker over long fingers folded around porcelain.
She is a carefully written poem on ivory paper, royal blue
ink blooming on a page, kissed and tied with a ribbon.
She is a timeless woman, inhabiting a thousand eras.
Her sharp eyes have outlived the courts of many kings,
have seen revolutions unfold and succeed and be shattered;
she has watched fights started over her in warm saloons and
soapboxed revolution on Boston Common, smiling dangerously.
She is the brightest of all muses.
He is in his element, shining bright with eyes like starlight,
a compliment to the beauty he saw first of everyone.
I feel a soft adoration for what she is to him, and think how
that, really, is poetry.

Cups of coffee and plates with sugar crumbs
from pastry warm with cinnamon and cardamom,
and books overturned on antique tables
with scruff marks and scratches, loved, well-used,
(and me, in the middle of it all, listening to the
heartbeat of this country and its sincerity,
learning wisdom through small things).
He is a six foot springtide of caffeine and literature,
effervescent with sincerity and kindness and warmth.
I smile at him over the rim of my cup, and
suddenly I am swept up and moving with
his current, in love with him and a summer
spent scribbling into casebound notebooks
and with my hair flying in the wind that rustles
the trees around us, and with his lips on my neck.
Wild roses on brick walls and wooden window frames,
and the lavender growing on the curb all smile,
content to witness summer love bloom like
all things tend to do, in this season and this place.
I let him explain to me the stars in nights that
never seem to really begin but last forever;
he teaches me in not-quite darkness what
they mean, and I tell him under fairy-lights
how small I feel in the multitude of this universe.
He nods solemnly and I feel his breath in my hair,
holding me on this earth as he shows me galaxies.

- lund. cs.

Legs tangled together, clammy skin on skin, and the sun
rising behind pointed rooftops, painting the sky
an aquarelle of budding peonies and candied orange peel.
Bruised lips taste of chocolate and blueberries, and the
white wine from last night. My arms feel heavy and
my soul is featherlight, soaring into the sunshine.
The morning air is crisp in a way that announces
summer heat for the coming day, and a discarded blouse
moves with the breeze. Life is eminent yet strangely
far away from this corner of the earth that we have
burrowed ourselves into, hidden from the universe.
The city hums with life and wisdom and love, and we
have watched it burst into song and whisper quietly
but it has never seemed as beautiful as now.
Fingers link together like souls have, and lips brush
in a greeting, in recognition, and then smile.

when I fall in love,
I burst into flames.

- some fires burn longer than others. cs

I do not mind my walls falling, crumbling, being overrun;
you are a compassionate conqueror, and there is
sweetness in surrender, safety in your reign.
Within blankets like dunes of snow, we lie surrounded by
words not said, yet felt and known and understood.
The earth moves around the sun, and the moon
pulls water across oceans, and you are beautiful.
It is true every minute of every day, and I know it.
I suspect the stars also align at your will, but you
have told me they dance in my eyes; and reality is
flexible and water-slick in the morning hours before the sun.
You reign me in to fit into the present but let
my soul fly unguarded and unchained; you let
my heart dance with yours yet to its own beat.
Luminous supernovas and galaxies flutter over your face,
reflect on the bridge of your nose, cast shadows and brightness.
I am at a loss for words; this universe, or maybe
the language I share with you, that isn't mine,
does not have the words, is not enough to describe
you, and who you are, your significance and what you mean -
I can think of three, and they dance on my tongue.

- "i love you" cs

At night she buries herself six feet below the ground
and she paints her face with a smile every morning.
Her mascara is waterproof and her shaking hands
buried deep inside the pockets of a beautiful coat
while she tells exciting tales of sorbet happiness.

She is a conundrum, weaves lies from silver thread
and hides behind red lipstick smiles over coffee cups.
She whispers false promises to you and herself
between Egyptian cotton sheets, skin illuminated
by the glow of the sun rising behind a high-rise.

This girl is careless but made of glass, and her eyes
catch every word you say, and carry it along, but
her words are not those you preserve in your heart.
She bursts into flames in the middle of an ocean;
she will never be anyone’s to take, or understand.