Her figure in my bed
relaxes, half obscured by silk sheets;
there’s a sweetness to her uncovered form,
not in a way that is ****** or arousing,
but for how it speaks of comfort in my presence
like we are so adapted to each other
that nothing is strange or foreign to us—
even the vulnerability of nakedness.

And like a goddess, she pulls me in to her chest,
a whisper of soft and beautiful flesh;
there, I imagine us as once born from the ocean,
with pearl strewn hearts and wanton eyes,
as goddess meets goddess among seafoam and silk.

There are only two ways to truly know someone: sleep with them or take them bowling.
Phoenix Aime was the woman of my dreams. So, I took her bowling.

Paid for a game. Rented shoes. Got the little, sticky bracelet thingy that said Slippery Joe Lanes.
That way if we got in some sort of accident on the way home,
the guy at the morgue could identify us as bowlers. Anyway, here's the bulleted list of what I knew about Phoenix up to that point:

• She looked like Diane Keaton circa 1972
• She talked with great pretension concerning craft beer
• She only patronized two restaurants: Denny's and IHOP
• She was eight years older than me
• She kissed my sister once on a dare
• Her shoe size was 7
• She was perfect or a near synonym

The bowling alley was empty save a World War II vet in a wheelchair and his wife at lane six,
and they were barely there. Country music played over the loud speaker. And I felt cozy. Predictable. Like a payment plan on the QVC.

That was until Phoenix said, "I forgot something. I'm going to go talk to Mack real quick."
Mack worked the front desk, according to his name tag. Talk to Mack. She just talked to Mack. Mack was sleeping with her. I untied my shoelaces. Oh, Mack, love your red polo with blue tiger stripes.
I pulled my sneakers off. Oh, Mack, I love it when you dip your finger in nacho cheese and feed it to me. Slid my right foot into bowling shoe. Halfway in with the left, and my socked foot struck something plastic. A stick of tiny deodorant. Like unsavory truck-stop-to-truck-stop deodorant. Oh, Mack, I love it when you deodorize -- so hard. Pull the strings tight on the left shoe. Oh, Mack, rub the deodorant until your underarms are SO CHALKY AND WHITE.

"You okay?" Phoenix asked.

"Yeah, what do I look like something's wrong?"

She carried a seafoam green bowling ball with a ****** Mary insignia. "It looks like you triple-knotted your shoes there."

And I said something dumb like, better safe than sorry.

"Sorry about leaving you all alone. Mack holds onto my ***** for me," she said.  I bet he does. "I hate talking to that guy." What? "He's a vegan."

Now, at that time in my life, I was a vegan. And had planned some stirring remarks about the processing of sweet little piggies into cancerous hot dog machines on the way to pick her up. Thought she would think me full of passion, "on fire" for a cause, you know? The wise thing would have been to say, oh well, I'm a vegan. But instead I asked, "What do you mean?"

"You know serial killer's get a last meal before they're executed, right?"

"Right." Where the hell is this going?

"Well, have you ever heard of someone on death row requesting a last meal that didn't involve some sort of animal product? Gacy had buckets of chicken, Bundy had a medium rare steak, even uh, ****, what was his name, McVeigh, Timothy McVeigh he had two pints of mint chocolate ice cream. Dairy."

"I'm not sure how this refutes veganism."

"Nobody is a vegan for their last meal. Nobody. I'm not going to subscribe to a diet that I can't follow until the very end. Live every day like your last, that's my motto."

"That's your motto." I said. To be a great listener, just repeat the last three or four things anyone says to you and raise your eyebrows a little bit. (Examples: "My dog died." -- "You're dog died.", "I never ate breakfast burritos again." -- "Never ate it again.", "I love you." -- "You love me.")

Over Phoenix's shoulder, over by lane six, the wife wheeled the World War II vet up to the lane. And he tossed the ball. Good team, I thought. Want to know someone take them to the bowling alley.

Phoenix removed a glove from her pocket. She had her own ball. Brought her own badass, jet black bowling gloves. And if her carnivorous tendencies hadn't already put a ***** in the Golden Days of Josh and Phoenix, that glove did.

She typed her name first on the scoring computer. Didn't ask if I wanted to go first. That's fine. Approached the lane, three fingers inside the ****** Mary. She brought her bony arm back with the grace of a ballerina tucked away stage right in the shadows. Mary cut from grace slid down the lane with a spin.

Strike. I couldn't really see the pins from my angle. But I recieved a transmission via the "yes" and arm pump. That was two marks against her, and I was going to three. I'd call it strikes, but well, the whole bowling skew.

Here's a bulleted list of what a "yes" and arm pump immediately taught me:

• She takes bowling serious.
• If you take bowling serious, when do you relax?
• She'd never relax.
• My life would be tucked shirts, matching belts and shoes.

For six frames, I picked up fours and sevens. Phoenix, though, nothing but strikes. I threw a gutter on frame seven. Like a normal human being, I shrugged. Made a face out the sides of my mouth. Kept it light.

"I thought you were a grown *** man," Phoenix said.

"Me too."

What happened next, I willed. I'm not god or anything like that. At the time, just cosmicly ******.
Her step stuttered. 7-10 split. "Mack!" she screamed. "Floors are slicker than a used car salesman's hair."

From across the alley,
"Sorry, Phoenix, baby. I'll bring you some nachos. That make up for it?"

"Ain't gonna knock down two pins is it?"

"So, uh, no nachos then?"

"Actually, go ahead and bring those."

She lined up. Back straight. Legs together. She rolled her neck. "You're about to see how it's done."

And I didn't. She broke it down the middle. Field goal. In that moment, that holy moment, I was knowledge plateau. Vindicated.

For about 10 seconds.

Mack swaggered over, nachos in hand. "Phoenix, sweetie, you okay?"

"Do I look okay?"

"No, that's why I asked."

"Just give me the nachos."

"Ah crap." Mack had gotten his pointer finger in the nacho cheese.

"Let me see it."

And right there, right in front the ****** Mary seafoam green bowling ball, she slurped the cheese off his finger."

Frame seven, a good as time as any to call it a match. The wife of the World War II vet kissed her husband's forehead. Handed him a ball. As I walked by, hand on shoulder. "Struck gold, dude."

I couldn't tell your skin from sadness on the dryest, darkest nights.
I refused to acknowledge the rising tides that licked my ankles, threatening to fill my lungs with seafoam. I threw my head back and laughed, instead.
I, born of Neptune, am no different from the hungry tides. I want to wash you ashore and squeeze the water from your milky skin. You'll be as translucent as a jellyfish.
And I will smile, disgusted and aroused.

I remember being at the park
waiting for you.
I had my leather jacket on,
a book on my right hand
and tea on the other.
You were the lights on a christmas tree.
You were the confetti on a cake.
You were Bonnie and I was Clyde.
But you disappeared.
Sooner than seafoam,
And I was blue,
bluer than the ocean.

the seashell glimmer
of seafoam and fir tree moss
sparkles out the corners
of your eyes
as you dimple sweetly
up at me--

I lose where I end
and you begin,
a lavish ocean of
passionate spray along the wind
of birds flying overhead
and delicate kisses mingled
amidst sheets--

i don't know
how i came to know you,
feel you so deeply a part
of me so quickly,

but I have to wonder
if the stars have
a plan in mind for us
to learn together,
beneath the radiant moon--

--LNM
(01.16.2017)

the walls close in on me and
     I push against them until they turn to dust.
     The world opens up in front of me:
        a vast field of dust-covered pavement,
        with rolling hills of landfills every few miles.
           no cars to be found, but markers where they should go.
              I feel free.
My body does cartwheels but my eyes stay sharp
     searching in the distance at the lights as they dance in my spinning head.
         "they mean something," I said, not knowing the weight of my words.
     The dancing lights outline all my thoughts now--forever changed because of the words you spoke
         each thought different and building on the one before it,
            "go, go, go"
I jump between the hills and the hills smile back,
     filling me with lightness as I float away, up into the seafoam-colored sky that carries me back to where we began,
           "go, go, go,"
So I start to run--
   faster than I am able to run--
and that's when I realize none of this is real,
       but the dancing lights around my thoughts don't disappear,
       and I'm still left with your words ringing in my ears
            as I roll and roll down the kind hills.
my hands become claws
    so I begin to climb back up but my feet have become sticky,
    and I'm struck by the irony of having hands that can climb and feet that can't move,
         so I fall back and let the irony carry me away,
             far, far, away from the hills that smile and the pavement that seems endless,
             and once I know the end is near your words stop ringing and the lights start to fade, and I notice I'm no longer floating but falling
It's only then I understand the meaning of the lights,
     and now that it's dark I long for that dusty, seafoam-colored world once more.
     so I whisper, "go, go, go."
     And the walls start to close in once more.

Completely awake, without qualms
Yet halfway to lovelessness
Pure unlike the trying music
And clear as an inkless bell
While they are striped with accidental brambles, thickets, and other cruel beauties
As I once was

Then, petrified by black and white film,
Tasting not salt nor sugar but ambivalence
Now, I remember how the foreign world rippled
The mountains shifted- they stood still
There were questions in the seafoam until
Thunder shook its pattern

However much I long to say,
Embrace me; forget the day
My mother reminds me that I am
Blossoming, young, omnipresent
With shields of sun and pieces of moon
Visible in my eyes
Which tell the mirror,
She is of age, but she is not of age

-c.j.

Fallow brown, like he's poured his whole soul out through the gold sieve and lies in wait to be replenished.

2. The color of the ocean. Blue, I guess, but that’s not even the half of it. All the ruggedness of the waves—forming up, breaking, and forming again like life is only the motions. Her eyes are blue, but you could hardly tell.

3. A hand-painted bowl of fresh chocolate frosting from which the most immature hands soonest get a mouthful.

4. Beautiful. Like, drop dead gorgeous. I’d dig my own grave and stick to rolling in it if she ever looked at me some type of way. Their color? I don’t know. But most of all, I dare to wonder about the bludgeoned scar between them.

5. Sturdy cobalt. Far more indicative of her steady heart than gold could ever hope to be. Still susceptible to tear, but not so easily warped by heat or stress.

6. Simply brown. No, red? It’s always been hard to tell through the fog. Truthful like the rawest earth, I’ll call her mahogany.

7. Faded blue spray paint over a slate gray wall. Forcibly muted after her years of blasting music, but there’s still that rogue twinkle to them that I pray slips through the cracks.

8. Coffee, with all the vim and vigor to make you click your heels and fall in love.

9. Unripe lime seen lazing in the shade. Not fit for a margarita just yet, but straining at the bit nonetheless.

10. Hazel, although I still don’t know what the **** that actually is. Whatever. It looks nice on her resume.

11. Green. Or were they blue? The memories of her were too wonderful, too important, that I had to let the littlest details fade away first.

12. The crystallized seafoam that made me realize I deserved to feel alive, too.