One fervent longing:
the gaps between my fingers
filled so full with yours.

Love is not blind, it is terrifying.

Somewhere between awake and asleep, I am a younger version of myself. It is summer, August. We have been piled in the back seat of my sister's Toyota for over an hour, our bronzed knees kissing one another like honeybees fluttering to perfumed petals. We have waited for this moment, it seems, our entire lives, and now that it's here, we wonder how long it will last.


It is quiet as we park the car and snake our way up the face of the mountain. We pause to sample the wild blueberries and to drink in the last of the sun's light before the dark blanket of night settles in. Tonight I can not feel my own legs beneath me as I inch myself toward the edge of the jagged crag, just your skin warm and salty in my palm.

We lay together on the rock's edge, our bodies settling, our limbs digging into the earth, rooting us to this place, this feeling.

"Why?" I ask, and you do not have to say "Why what?" because all there is is the beginning of the end, stretching infinitely before us like a strand of shiny pearl goodbyes.

You light a joint and drink heavily from its tip. I am lost in the signals that dance across your lips and I want nothing more at this moment than to taste you, to sample the flavors of your breath--campfire and clover.

Instead I take my own slow sips and hold the smoke inside my lungs for as long as I can, just to see what it's like to stop breathing. We rise together, two bluebirds hovering above the olive-green of life.

Now we are naked and tangled as we map out our futures in the electrical wires that hang above our heads: the roads we're sure to travel alone, and the one we know we we'll never brave together.

When we finally make love, I am afraid to stray from your gaze, because part of me knows that after tonight I will struggle to remember the exact color of your eyes. We are both trembling, but I can tell in the way that you say my name that it's not for the same reason.

Libidos high,
Thigh to thigh,
Fingers intertwined.
*******,
Perfection,
Under clothes we slide.
Quick to breathe,
Meeting sheets
As we depart from our chairs.
Nearly starved,
Back arched,
Hands pulling hair.
Sweet memory,
Reverie:
You all over me.
Quick kiss
To the hips,
Devour my body.
Make it ache,
Earthquake,
Start to tremble with lust.
Naked breast
On your chest,
Tick tock--COMBUST.
Rise higher,
Entice her,
****** desire.
Take me,
Embrace me,
A lover's empire.
Tongue to tongue,
Move as one,
Tangled forms we grasp.
Seduction,
Eruption
Sweet lovers' ******.

I memorized all the lines
On the palms
Of your hands.
Where were we when
I watched you
Dance
From afar, hips
Swinging wild,
Hands twisting
In the wind?
I can remember
Snowfall on the branches
Under the maple
Where we christened
Our home,
Dug into its skin
To let Them know
We had been There.
I knew you well then,
When the gaps between
Your fingers filled
With mine,
When your lines met my lines,
And we felt reckless
To Collide.

touch warm wind summer mist sage spice
melt salt skin moon glow pale white
eyes chocolate fire five fingers brush face
lips parted ocean blue water tongue taste

            hands fumble rip tremble buttons quick eager
            sweat ***** sweet skin bone blind fever
            one rise soar sky wind breathe high
            one sink cave stone dark deep dive

twist tangle grasp hair pull nip scratch
key lock door shades drawn open latch
breathe quick speak hum soft satin whisper
rhythm run river rush afterglow glisten

For years I have known only you.

You, unfaithful lover, mutilated monster, blood-******* fiend.
You, walking cadaver, trash-filled ocean, rotting mouthful of cotton candy cavity.

I felt you first when their faces filled my mind with nuclear lies.  We walked the halls, hand-in-hand, eyes fixed on the laces of our shoes, desperately searching the cracks in the floor for our hollow reflections.  Together we were like widowed spiders, catching unsuspecting bugs in our twisted, silkened webs, and draining their insides for our own selfish use.  We were run-down strippers and streetside hookers, needles shared between haggard addicts shooting up MAGICDUST in blackened midnight alleyways.  I twisted my fingers with yours, knelt before thick lines spread upon deceitful mirrors, lies threaded between rolled bills.  I spoke your name before tornados and blizzards, blindly hummed your song in the presence of serial killers and wild felines with frothing, razored teeth.

For far too long I felt your wrath.

You, loaded shotgun, CLICKCLICKBOOM.
You, pointed blade, silvered hair, bloodied sheet smeared with scream.

I danced with you on wires of barb, 12341234, licked clean the wounds you salted with poisoned defeat.  I shot your arrow from a rusted bow and laughed, cried, prayed for the ****.  On weathered crags where nothing grows we testified our right to life, dug the graves of sinners and murderers, liars and thieves, then threw ourselves inside.  Six feet deep.  Like zombies we emerged, hungry for throbbing hearts and wrinkled lobes of brain.  Like hunters we searched, scouring mine fields and sunken ships for our hidden souls.

Many nights I succumbed to your power.

You, thick leather belt lashed upon my back.
You, vicious, vindictive virus pulsing thick through my veins.

I've tried to lead you astray from your destruction.  I threw you from marbled balconies and left you behind in dense, overgrown forests where I knew not my way.  I fed you to flesh-hungry pirhanas and strangled you in my clenched, white-knuckled fists, trampled your face with spiked heels and had you sleep upon hot coals.  Yet still you found your way to me, followed the trail of trembling hands back to my door and hid in the corners of rooms and the pages of books, waiting for your next attack.

From you I have learned.

You, wolf in wolf's clothing, howling at my moon.
You, filthy fox of the slyest breed.