I liked the way you and
your crisscrossed legs sat on
my middle-school-ignorant
navy-blue and daisy-patterned comforter,
watching,
hearing,

the way your fingers crept
towards the neck of my ukulele
while the magnetized look in your eyes drew mine and
my own fingers fell
slack in divine-driven intrigue,

the way you and
your eyes
full of quiet study and wisdom, like
worship, like
your respect of this instrument as not wood but as
hundreds of years of polished amber-tinted history
has earned you ownership, and it
does.

you and
your fingers then
spun aching minor chords, like
worship, like
somehow, in the sparkling incensed-violet melody you
spilled all over
me in my righteous nihilism

you and
your body became an
offering, and
the wood

burned my fingertips when you
handed it back to me, ashamed and awe-stricken, like
worship, like
your life is an offering, and even

when I found the notes you played
(on this instrument that is not mine)
200 days and 200 nights after I knew you and
your legs sitting on my bed and
your multidimensional fingers,
worshipping,

no matter what I tell myself, I
am not a believer in beyond, and
pretending to pray just reeks of
my own mortality.

Made a couple extra dollars last week
well actually it was a check to be
exact and now
it’s gone

I used it as a bookmark for the time
being, but forgot which book I left
it in

Now on a brisk Tuesday morning in October
the only thing that stands between me and
a smooth cup of coffee is a stack of
crinkled books

Slowly but surely, I ****** up the tattered copies
of Dickinson, and Tolstoy, and Lawrence, and Byron
tossing through the pages

Not a drop of worry enters my mind, knowing it’s
in one of the books but I just have to find it
and hell, it’s going to be sticking out of the top
there’s no way I could have misplaced it too bad
I’m not a complete fool after all

“Just gotta get through the books and
all the money is mine,
all the money in the world”
I say musing myself

You know, I actually went to a place
for four years straight and I swear they told me
the exact same thing

“Just get through the books and you’ll have
all the money in the world” was all I heard relentlessly
from the teachers, students, and myself
all while I was giving them
all the money I had in the world yet here I stand broke
scraping for change

I guess I am a fool after all

When I met you I thought my life would change
I thought my life would have meaning
I thought I was becoming a man

When I met you
My life changed
Not the way I expected though

I stopped doing drugs and smoking
I found love and loved it
I found friendship and cherished it
Friendship betrayed me soon after
Love sent me on my way
I became a party animal
And drug addict

Highschool
When I met you
I thought my life would have meaning,
But my thoughts were deceiving
I was blind to what I was seeing
And lost myself

Tomorrow I'll send you on your way
And there'll be no way to make me stay
I'll never forget you
I'll never regret you
I'll never miss you
Tomorrow my life will change,
But wasn't that how all this started

Bones-Let’s let them be dry and ******
As if that be the way they were found
Let them crack and fracture and bruise, amongst the concrete ground
Let them have their space to break and wither away-
Let’s turn the other cheek-while behind us they quickly decay
And then let’s use their fossils for fuel, weapons or laddels in every size
As simply as to stir the ***, and smug at their great demise
If not ashes to dust, then what'll be of our bones we fast to give away-
Sewn better than not, twist an arm for play-

But simple pleasures wither too, bones we toddle but dare not fix
Let them wonder how we toyed our hearts- like a feverish game of pick-up-sticks.

-Bre Womble

Once I had an undesirable roommate
I was in college at the time
I was assigned to a girl not so great
She did things I considered crimes

I thought if I don’t get some relief
I will lose what is left of my mind
My stay at this college will be brief
How can I leave my troubles behind

I walked down the hall of my dorm
Feeling very sad and forlorn
Then suddenly I had a brainstorm
That would heal all the hurt I had born

Quickly I slipped into another room
I met a girl I had long admired
Holding my breath, did I dare presume
She was working quietly and seemed inspired

I didn’t know if she knew who I was
If she would even listen to my request
I told her the problem that had caused
My world to be so greatly upset

She seemed not a bit surprised at all
For in a dorm rumors fly like the wind
She smiled at me and my southern drawl
Would you like to join me and move right in

Her words were like a balm to my soul
I quickly moved my possessions in before
My old roommate could return and stroll
In to make a drama scene that I abhor
That was my college freshman year
I remember many friends and good times
But the best decision I made was clear
Moving in with Jean Shuey was prime

She was smart and always a lady so fine
Five years older with some gray in her hair
I was an extrovert and spoke my mind
Together we made the ideal pair

All that year she gave me much pleasure
Studying and talking late into the night
I always thought of her as my treasure
Without her I would have been in a plight

Time has its way of rushing on
After college we lost contact
I saw her a few times over days gone
But I failed to call or keep track

Today I decided to contact her again
Soon I found her address and phone
I wondered if her would still be my friend
Or would rather just be left alone

We talked for hours of good times and bad
So much to catch up on after thirty years
We both had lost our dear mom and dad
But we said good-bye without any tears

We planned to email each other often
And meet at a restaurant for a meal
I hope we never again let years soften
Our love and admiration, time will not steal

there is nothing quite like being with you ...

sitting cross-legged on your warm crumpled comforter in dim amber light
with hunched backs against the white stone wall,
silently working to piece each other together,
merging thoughts and shoulders,
falling into each other's gravity and orbiting like stars–
we couldn't figure out
how to get any closer ...

we lived in shoeboxes then,
in ***** laundry and ramen-flavored freedom,
the soundtrack in our background
shuffled steps and muffled laughter through thin walls,
pencil scratches and elevator dings,
wooden doors and heavy coats,
cars in the snow rushing by our open windows,
hot cocoa, creaking bedsprings, and
singing–

I have been listening for the music in the things here–
I have searched in comforters, in stone walls,
in laundry and ramen,
in slippers and open mouths and pencils and elevators and doors and coats and cars and snow and windows and chocolate and bedsprings and everyday I try to remember something else I can dissect:
some texture, some melody, some pattern, some rhythm
where you might exist too,
but your music
is nowhere else.

we live in big empty houses now,
in hardwood floors and toothpaste-flavored loneliness.
I can still hear our shoeboxes
and feel the pull of our gravity
somewhere
fading ...

Baseboards lined with spiderwebs
That shimmer in the slanted sun
Next to worn, wooden chairs
Feeling sturdier than ever
Shelves and shelves of
Outdated textbooks and encyclopedias
Crinkly and brown and yellowed
How many trees went into these pages
This forest rearranged
And defaced by movable type

I sit in my school's dusty library
Like a picture taken on film
Full of grain and texture
Frozen beams of light
Through slanted venetian blinds
Capture and hold dust
Suspended like dew in a spider web