Three meager blackberries
not quite formed,
plucked too soon from the vine.

Like us,
you were not quite ripe.

But your sister is with us now.

A sweltering run through the pastoral streets
Past the chemical plant and decrepit machinery
A couple miles trekked for nature's delicious treats
Incardine specks and black dots poke through thick greenery

Step over the ditch into the smokey mud
Stick your hand in carefully, the cost just a little blood

A blackberry picked from the protective thorn
is sweeter than one picked from the grocery store

i fall in love with everyone
and my lips are never chapped
  so now i eat cinnamon toast
   and i paint the sun
    with blackberry juice

He's been an orphan since he was sixteen
That's when his parents kicked him out because he was so mean .
He's been living on the steps of every backdoor
What he can't get begging he will steal for

Once he was his mother's pride and joy
That was before he started drugs and there was no wonder anymore .
His skin turned hard and his heart harder still
His eyes became vacant lots lacking any will

He was living for a shot in the dark
Instead someone shot him down by the park
He died with a silly grin on his face
Don't worry there's someone who will take his place

Just another American dream disgraced
Another person slips off the face
He was dead before he hit the ground
His life ended with out a sound

And every day we say I don't care
He wasn't going to make it anywhere
All he was good at was getting high
Now he's gone and no one's asking why

His skin was as hard as a memory
He kept then in a bottle of pills he got free
No one even knows his name
Bud or Buster , it was all the same

No one even knows his name
They put him in a black bag that's the shame
He'll never be around again
And no one really cares

It's the taste of blackberries
on your lips
The bittersweetness of
not-quite-ripe fruit.
I cannot forget the
sentiment
from the brush
of your fingertips
against my chin
After picking berries
from
these bushes.
I can almost say:
that a memory as gentle
as your kiss
ignites a tenderness
inside me
and the thought that
love isn't so forceful
when subtle.

His jealousy is like a poison in my blood
I can feel my limbs getting heavy
in my attempts to ease it
but it just gets stronger.
My limbs are like dead weight
sinking sinking deeper
drowning in the water
unable to rise
unable to feel.
I fall to the ground
so deep I can feel the hounds of hell breathing
breathing me in
the way I breathed in the smell of my coffee
the smell of his blackberry tea.
He prefers tea to coffee
it has a better taste to him
he only likes iced coffee.
His presence has gone silent
he no longer speaks.
I don’t hear from him
he’s done
he just disappeared.
It’s like it never happened.
I never watched him play
with his tea cup after it was gone.
He never kissed me.
He kissed me...
Maybe he did have a right to be jealous of him.
Maybe it made sense...
I just don’t know.
I wish his presence would come back.
I enjoy talking to him
seeing him
being around him.
But I also enjoy being around the other.
How can I expect him to not be jealous
when I know how he feels,
but I still tell him when I hang out with another guy?
Like Eli and his blackberry tea
his blackberry tea and my coffee.
My coffee I sipped at to make the moment last longer.
I’d been so scared he wouldn’t like me.
I was already wondering why he wanted to hang out with me
he’s a freshman in college I'm a sophomore in high school.
The only conversations we had before then
was always about poetry
poetry
poetry
poetry.
But what did I do?
Why did he just stop?
All I did was say I couldn’t hang out that night.
He asked at eleven at night.
I was already lounging around.
I was watching movies.
I had to work in the morning.
Why did he wait till eleven at night to ask?
I was free all day
but he waits till its dark and I can’t leave.
Why does that give him reason to ignore me?
I guess two can play at that game
but its a little harder on my end.
When you’re already being ignored its hard to ignore them
especially when you just want them to talk to you.
Talk to me.
Talk to you.
What am I talking about?
If he messaged right now
we all know I’d answer.
What’s a girl to do
when she wants to be around the person
that’s ignoring her?
Before you ask
no, I don’t like him like that
at least I don’t think
I don’t know.
I don’t know what I think.
I don’t know anything.
I don’t know me.
I don’t know you.
I don’t know her .
and I apparently don’t know him either.
But I know the other.
He’s still there
watching quietly in his jealous stupor.
He’s still talking to me
but that has made no difference.
Especially when he quotes my own poems back to me
“‘This inexpressible, uncontrollable feeling’
for you
you
only you
no one else
just you”
I don’t know how to respond to that.
how does he expect me to respond?
I don’t even know anymore!

Blackberry kisses,
stinging strawberry cuts,
and raspberry colored veins.
If only the shape of your lips
had been as perfect as the
cherry I'm ******* on.
Unfortunately, the golden apple
hue that your soul radiated
was only momentary.

Sunshine on delicate pink
warms and sweetens blackberry nectar.
Scents of nectar
attracts honeybees.
Amber stripes and transparent wings
weave a tapesry on my canvas.