Rodin: My love, I am on my knees facing your beautiful body. My mouth is drinking your fire. I ***** us in stone. We are indissoluble.

Camille: I am heaven and hell. I am goddess and fire. You are my chauvinistic art-boy concubine.

Rodin: My dear Camille, can you not see my love for you is rooted in passion not stone or clay or bronze? Can you not feel my tongue lapping at your feet?

Camille: Foolish man. My feet are broken. I walk over you on stumps.

Camille leaves for England. Rodin follows.

Camille: You are boring.

Rodin: My love, can you not see that I am in a depressed mood. Can you not see that your capriciousness plagues me?

Camille: I love another.

Rodin: How can you say these things to me? I give you my heart. I give you my soul. I give you my artistic genius!

Camille: You’re right. You are a genius.

Rodin: Shall I write us up a contract?

Camille: As long as you don’t touch me.

Camille and Rodin return to Paris separately.

Rodin: It has been written. I will mentor you, write you in newspapers, place you in museums, and find you buyers.

Camille: You will not love another? You will spurn all but my art?

Rodin: I will. And you will marry me in return.

Camille: …

Rodin: Is there something wrong, my love?

Camille: Can you not see I am being facetious?

Rodin: My dear, you are my flora and gaiety. You are my chisel and stone. You are my breath and lungs.

Camille: Learn how to breathe without me.

Camille exits. Rodin crumples at the feet of Eternelle Idole.

Rodin: What have I done wrong?

Camille re-enters, her hands caked in clay.

Camille: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Rodin: Shall I get the handcuffs?

Camille: No. The lion’s cage.

*Strong tides and wet fuchsias. Camille enters the cage forever.

Burning of eyes as I just awoke
My room pitch black
The warmth of my bed makes me want to stay forever
But excitement boils over my five year old mind
as I remember it is Christmas morning

My feet turn to ice as I stick them out of the blanket
The floor making them stick.
I lift up my feet and gallop to my sisters room.
Boom, boom, boom,
My heels make contact with the hardwood floor

I grab the golden **** to my sisters room
I push quietly but fast
The door makes a slight squeak
I sprint to her bedside.
“WAKE UP CAMILLE IT’S CHRISTMAS!” I yell in the middle of her room.
At that point, I didn’t care about waking my parents up.

She sits right up with a smile on her face
And flings the blankets beside her legs as she puts her feet to the ground.
We race down the hallway
Dogs nails tapping on the floor as they follow us to the living room
The big, dusty, gross purple couch is the barrier between
me and the present I have been dreaming about for this entire year,
A new bike.
I run around the couch to see the chrome shining in the moonlight
The tires casting a shadow over the small area rug.
Stockings on the back of the big leather chair,
which instantly drew our attention.

We tear open the stockings and compare the new trinkets we got.
Cardboard, tin wrapping, and chocolate wrappers flying everywhere.
We were smiling so much I swear we could hear them.

Parents come out to see us grinning beside the heater as we tear apart our favorite toy for the day.
We gather around the living room like it was superbowl sunday and the tree is our
flatscreen.
The blue and silver and red and green collage of corny wrapping paper,
the giant boxes wrapped tightly and perfectly.

Dad is beside the tree, deciding which present we can open, and lightly tossing it to us.
We catch is as carefully as we could, set it on our laps and wait for our turn to unwrap.

As thank you’s are thrown around like baseballs at a little league practice
I patiently glance at my mom, and get the nod that I can unwrap.
This square box is staring eye to eye with me and I get the jitters as I unwrap it.
The red paper finally off, I open the box with ease.

What I found was the coolest thing ever, thats all I remember.

But now, that box is filled with my happiness.
My memories.
Never has an empty box held so much.
It has the family dinners,
The camp outs and bon fires.
The laughs that come from the belly while playing games around the table.
The piano lessons for hours
And those coloring books that were more sacred than the bible.

But for now, the box is closed for the time being.
Sitting upon a shelf in my closet, waiting for the right time to be opened again.

The greatest gift I have ever received is the memories of home.
What home is to me is all inside that box.

Dads cooking on the table,
Moms questions about our day at school,
Camille talking about her math homework.

Now it’s just two lonely guys sitting at a table
discussing how ****** the economy is,
girls,
that one time when he tried to give me “the talk”
But he doesn’t need to, I go to public school after all.

What I am trying to say is, I miss those family dinners more than anything.
I miss the nights we would spend outside gazing at the stars
Pointing out the constellations in the sky and making up our own.

I look for those constellations all the time.
I once found a rose, and I named it Camille.
Dad never knew why I named it that, since shes my sister.
I named the constellation of the rose Camille because
Well, she has the rosy cheeks and the lovely smile.
But she sure as hell has her thorns.

A family dinner now is three people instead of four,
I say bedroom with a plural,

But this family, although gone through hell and back,
We live together in between different walls, roads, and doors.
But most of all, we live behind our present, and live in the past.

I want to end this by saying, Christmas brings new memories and my favorite time of the year,
because then my family exists.
I started to open presents slower and slower,
and hugging tighter and tighter.
And loving more and more.
I love you, Mom, Dad, Camille.
I really do, even when you think I don’t,
I love you guys, and I always will.

spirit stone
the emotion caught
in your embrace
where my body
melts into yours
the perfect blend
of masculine
and feminine
bathing in a river
of marble
the waves are
disquieting
the ring is lost

spirit stone
don’t deceive me
with other women
don’t trick me with
the old man
at your feet
I do not give up
I slave away
I work morning
and night

spirit stone
everything has been
cut
hay, wheat, stone
the interlude in
the fields
the moment when
the ring is found
dawn and thought
watch me
dawn and thought
wear on my
countenance

spirit stone
the moving echo
of my own past
the waltz to come
the hidden
atelier
the moment when
the king falls in love
with his wife
with his child

spirit stone
I am muse
I am artist
I am caught like
a fly
an agnostic
queen who found
the ring
to fall in the arms
of man

spirit stone*
if you keep your
promise
we will grow
with the sky
if you keep your
promise
we will be in
paradise