she spits out hurt like fire
a dragon in her own flesh
what little can he do
but pull out a cigarette

he'd rather burn his lungs instead
to refrain from saying things simply
misread


© A. Leigh

There's smoke in your lungs,
and then you breathe it into me.
Set me free from all of this trouble;
trading innocence for mystery.

And there's a time to kick and fight
and struggle. That's not now, or ever
again with me. We could be the next
Hollywood couple,
or else fade off into obscurity.

And those chimes,
they play in early morning,
and they bring
thunder to my dreams.
They sing
'boy, you sure look lonely,
living through your memories;
you're just living through your memories.

There's a place I know where we can go
and get high, then listen to the trains.
When it rains, I'll hold you like a pillow,
when it pours, we'll just get high again.

I'm on the brink of a suicidal cocktail.
Take a drink, then nurse it back in bed.
I lost my pain under the weeping willow,
when I took the pills to numb my sorry head.

Now I'll climb
until the mountain is a spindle,
until the wine
soaks into my blood.
This time
I'll listen to her lecture,
I'll sit and wait until all is understood.

And those chimes,
they play in early morning,
and they bring
thunder to my dreams.
They sing
'boy, you sure look lonely,
living through your memories;
you're just living through your memories.'

There's smoke in my lungs
and you breathe it out of me.
Set me free from all of this trouble,
no longer living through memories,
no longer living as a memory.

I can feel the shoreline fill my lungs.
Summer is on the tip of our tongues.
We'll dance towards the ocean without even knowing,
The gleam of the sun keeping our smiles still showing.
I can feel the grass caress me now.
It tells me of the rest it will allow.
The breeze sweeps me up and tells me tales
Of past respite its given us and our sails.

Our questions could tear apart forests,
Our answers would scare these artists,
This love contends the moon,
Howling like wolves of syllables strewn,
To ask that is to rival men,
To say that questions mother's amen,
Sing to me as if there's no end,
Show me you're my lone godsend.
Can these birds fly our homes to paradise?
Will these currents carry me, for a price?
To the days of easy belief,
Of simple life and careful relief.
How I long to drift to sleep,
How long I have been knee deep
In dreams worthy of ethereal escape,
Of efflorescent evanescence and similar shape.
Of sly phantoms and edible stars,
Of broken bones and hidden scars.
You can't stoke the thunder that burns in her fading heart,
But only tend the flame that dims while apart.

do you ever wonder
about the difference between
looking at something
and the hallucination created
when looking past it?
if you look at your hand
it's all you can see
but if you look past your hand
there are now two of them
sometimes it's hard for me
to remember which is real
it gets me thinking
about how my father
used to wake me up
in the morning by rubbing
his stubble across my face
i spent my 11th birthday
under the assumption
that he might come back
if i drank his aftershave
like maybe if i could turn blue
if i could be his favorite color
on our bathroom floor
he would forget why he left
the paramedics were all sobing
as they pumped memories
out of my stomach
i coughed up the day the post-it note with your new address on it
burned a hole in our refrigerator
coughed up the day
the divorce papers came
and my mother
took a baseball bat to the mailbox
i've been choking on the splinters
for 17 years
it's been 17 years
since the last dinner plate
exploded on our dining room wall
17 years since my mother
started accidentally setting your place at the dinner table
17 years since italian night
at the restaurant on the corner
where the juke box
spat tired music
and like so many other things
it stopped working when you left
i guess it's no coincidence
since the juke box went quiet
that the cds in my car
only skip on "i miss you"
i've been hemorrhaging memories
for so long
and now that i'm looking back
i can no longer tell
the mirage from the truth
sometimes i swear
you showed up to my graduation
and last time
i was at your apartment
i can't remember
if the imprints of my hands
are in clay hanging on your wall
or if they were left in the mud
the day god had the audacity
to let it rain
or maybe it's like the time
i saw someone crying on a bridge
now that i think about it
i can't remember if it was me

Drip drop tear.
The darkness nears.
Your demons are here.
Drip drop tear.

Drip drop tear.
The shadow leers.
Your pain is your peer.
Drip drop tear.

Drip drop tear.
The heart no longer bears.
Death smells of fear.
Drip drop tear.


©Aastha