I'd rather set myself on fire,
than see you hurting.

I’m getting older
In an multitude of ways
I can look at my yesterday and see so many things I thought I would have never seen
I fell in love again when I thought I didn’t have anymore love in me
I’m getting older
Maybe he’ll still love me as much as I love him
Im getting older

Snow piles up against the walls, but thin clothes are all they wear
As the boy gardens within the greenhouses behind the school,
Red, bright tomatoes slipping out of his fingers, and popping into his mouth
That grins at the bursts of sweetness.
Inches from him, the man by one month pretends not to glance his way
Instead shifting through the bristling leaves to claim breakfast’s zucchini.

He would complain at the theft if the tomatoes weren’t everywhere
Making bland meals of packaged rice and canned beans a savory impossibility.
It isn’t like little indulgence will take away all of the red little briberies,
The secret keys to a reluctant community spreading its arms wide months after the pair stumbled in.

The man scowls, and the boy glances up
Not hiding his interest like his companion.
The solution to anger is always tomatoes,
So the next slip of fingers is against the man’s lips
As he bites down, the sweetness pops away mild irritation in the flavor of surprise.
Neither gives in to smiles, but their shoulders brush more than once as the tension seeps out with the heat into the snow.

Hot breeze, 90 degrees. My shirt was soaking wet, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the sweat between my ******* or condensed beer bottle dripage falling from above. My days consisted of no work, all play. Vomiting out every ounce of fluid my body could hold once the clock struck 2AM, only to refuse the water and replenish myself with champagne in the morning. Filling myself with bubbles, hoping it’d make me more bubbly. For it was the season of the sun, of life, of vibrance- but I only seemed to be able to drag myself out from under my drunken mistake ridden sheets once night time arrived. I thrived in the darkness. It made it easier to put my tongue in places it shouldn’t have been, whether that be on a random salty neck or a burning bottle of tequila. It was the same cycle everyday, my goal to forget more than the day before. Until I didn’t remember anything anymore. I desperately wanted to find my way back to my old self, but it was left on the side of a road less traveled. A route with winding trails littered with shards of broken whisky bottles, and with every step I took more blood was drawn. But I was finally letting myself feel the pain instead of forcing its head down to drown in the overflowing liquid in my throat. Hotter than hell, late August brought a new fire to my eyes. I still don’t know how I survived the sweet, sweet summertime.

Picture a late afternoon
iridescent honey-yellow:

The glance she knows is seen
her cool hand placed in yours
your stripped shirt she rips,
her mouthing, “You’re it!”, hiding,
revealing herself stripped,
her finger tipped shh,
the brush of *******,
surrender and assent.

She'll rise with a rustle
of desiccated pines,
needles will fall from her back,
she'll crumple a cigarette pack,
humming a vacant lament,
fingers caressing a fossil flea
embalmed in a dangling pendant.

Copyright © 2003 Gary Brocks

I was a flower. A beautiful blossoming flower, you made me blossom more. My petals were at their peak. You left and my petals withered away just like my innocence and self love did.

I will make the same mistake to let someone plant my seeds again, let me blossom, let me love, and let me fall apart so you can have a flower crown.

“I won’t have ***** living in my house”
As if that’s all you’ve said to offend me
Unlucky for you I have a great memory
I have a mental transcript of everything you’ve said to me
17 years of tyranny
Where do I begin?
All the way back to kindergarten
The special ed teacher said she thinks I have dyslexia
You said it’s an excuse for being stupid
That was the first crime of many
You’ve called me worthless, ugly, and unwanted plenty
But actions speak louder than words
You’ve thrown your empty bottles of gloom across the living room
Crime after crime I’ve cleaned it up everytime
3 kids and I’m the only one, whose been “lucky” enough seen your gun
In april of twenty fourteen you burnt my brothers funeral card
Your fist has never hit me quite that hard

My body is a canvas you painted black and blue
Step back at look at your masterpiece, in her rubber-banded shoes
Every day I become more and more like you
If I ever have a daughter dear lord is she *******

Who gives a **** if I’m relatively gay
17 years you’ve lived with me everyday
Also, why ***** plural?
Am I gonna start an army or some ****?
Am I contagious?
I am plenty religious
I could count your sins
You say it hurts your shins to kneel at church so you keep sitting
And ******* on the person that I am
Making him perform this scam
At family parties pretending to be mine
Because my love is a crime
Are you out of your mind?

Its fine, I’m not going to cut my hair
This cross belongs around my neck
You need a reality check
Its 2018!
I am allowed to be seen without a man holding my hand
And protecting me from offensive words
This is defence served 110 pounds
I fell asleep to the sound of a car backfire
‘Call the therapist, this is dire’
Jesus, Mary, do everything you can
There’s a chance she wont be marrying a man
When life doesn’t go as planned just do more drugs
Hit and yell I’ll put in earplugs
But I’m going to push and I’m going to shove
Until you let me fall in love

How do you tell someone you like them?
(Not to add more confusion....)
But when you know them, and you see them happy
(I know, I know, don't steal their happiness)
But... You feel like they need to know, because it's not fair
(Polygamy at it's finest, it'd work if you work for it)
But that's not something anyone wants
(But i wish I could experience everything, with all of you)
'Sides... It's not like you can love more than one person like that.
(Especially when-)
Especially when...

One of them is your girlfriend
and
One of them has a girlfriend