(A Symphony in the Air)

She passed
and the air forgot its name.
A trail of fire, wrapped in flame.
Not footsteps, no… she left a bloom,
a whispered spell, a haunting plume.

Jasmine bruised with midnight spice,
vanilla smoke and crushed device,
amber kissed by ancient lore,
and musk like sin behind a door.

It wasn’t scent, it was a hymn,
a chorus pouring from her skin.
Each note a memory, raw, refined,
a fingerprint the soul designed.

It danced on silk, it clung to bone,
it made the silence overgrown.
You smelled her once, now every room
aches for that ghost…
that perfume.

It wasn’t soft… it struck like wine,
first sweet, then heat, then serpentine.
It woke the dark, it stirred the bed,
it crowned the lips where words had fled.

Men forgot their vows that night.
Women wept with pure delight.
Time itself stood still to breathe
a scent like that will never leave.

It lives in coats, in creaking floors,
on letters slipped through velvet doors.
You lose her, yes - she slips too soon.
But you will always keep her perfume.

He said:
Have you noticed how the sun commands the sky
bold, blazing, untouchable?
She smiled:
And how the moon listens
soft, steady, and never once needing to burn?

He said:
Fire must be a man - restless, hungry, loud.
She replied:
Then water is surely a woman
quiet, patient, but strong enough to carve canyons.

He teased:
Isn’t logic masculine?
She countered:
Only if emotion is feminine
and both are useless without the other.

He smirked:
Strength is a man’s trait.
She tilted her head:
Yet childbirth is not for the weak.

He whispered:
Desire… now that must be a woman.
She leaned in:
And control? That, my dear, is a man’s fantasy.

He said:
Betrayal wears a woman’s perfume.
She said:
And vengeance wears a man’s cologne.

He said:
War is written in a man’s script.
She replied:
But peace is cradled in a woman’s hands.

He paused, then confessed:
The world may have been built by men…
She completed him:
But it is held together by women.

They sat in silence,
neither victorious,
both understood.

Because every question seeks to conquer -
and every answer longs to heal.

I want to annotate your margins with my mouth.
Then I wanna arch you, till your spine curves.
I’ll take your pretty cover off and touch your soft paperback.
To affirm the words you wrote to me,
So forth, I’ll even say: And I, you.
So I, so you; so much.
You’re so then, such a good girl.
I’d use you and reuse you, maybe even never, ever let go.
You make me turn to our next chapter.
So, I do.

Fire Through the Screen

Miles of sand, a war-torn sky,
And still, it’s you who floods my mind.
Your face lit soft in pixel light,
A ghost of touch in desert night.

You whisper low, your voice like fire,
Each breath a spark, each word desire.
My hands can’t reach, but still they ache,
For every curve I cannot take.

Your beauty glows through static haze,
A sun that burns in far-off days.
I watch you move, a sacred spell,
A private world where bodies dwell.

You tease the straps from sun-kissed skin,
And I forget the world I’m in.
No bombs, no guns, just you and me,
Two souls undressed by memory.

I talk you through with hungry eyes,
You answer back in breathless sighs.
The screen between us can’t divide
The fever rising deep inside.

This isn’t just some fleeting thrill—
It’s need, it’s love, it’s wanting still.
To claim you whole, to taste your name,
To feel you burn and do the same.

And though you’re half a world away,
We keep the dark and cold at bay.
Through cords and keys and whispered pleas,
We love in digital release.

Come home to me—my heart, my flame.
Until you do, I’ll speak your name
Into the night, into the fire,
With every pixel, every desire.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

it
i
it remains empty, so empty.
would you write into it endlessly,
would you writhe inside of it fervently
please ugly please