another pink little sugar pill
wash it down reflexively
saying maybe don't wake up tomorrow
maybe won't be so bad

but, thinking like you walk,
with lilting gait, and furrowed brow
stumble-fall, only to be

bruised peaches
with fuzzy knees
looked over later
rejected for riper fruit

There is a bag of peaches
in the refrigerator
However, I'm afraid
that they've gone bad
And left a soggy puddle
of juice in the drawer.

I believe this is because
I was saving them for you,
And you were saving them for me  
So no one ate them.
Wrapped in a blanket of caring,
They wasted away,
Like I will if you leave

He waits in the park for a date.
A bus full of los Angeles Models and photographers
talk through walkie talkies.
He walks around spying through his peripheral.
pretending he's James Bond trying to scope them out.
He wonders if he seems suspicious, or if he's going undetected.

A Beautiful girl passes briskly by, looking curiously around.
She long dark bangs, fall colored scarf, flirty skirt.
She sits on a nearby bench.
He no longer thinking of his date.

"oh my god."
"wait, no."
"what if she showed up right when you started flirting?"
"be respectful."

A vibration in his palm.
"I'm Here"
he looks around
the only woman to fit the profile is perched on the bench.
"no way."
He walks over to the girl.
"you walked right past me, beautiful."
on his face is a smolder
the gas mask used to hide all sorts of jumbled feelings in the past.
Today. it's hiding a tiny jumping boy. feeling like he just won the gorgeous girl lottery.
This is his Date.

They go to Dobra Tea,
She takes a sip.
"It tastes like peaches" she says.
"Peaches come, in a can." The boy starts.
"they were put their by a man" she adds.
they screamingly harmonize a bit too loudly for a tea shop
"In a factory downtown"
they shush each other.
giggles erupt out of them as they collapse into the tiny pillows.
they get quiet.

the girl explains she puts her "bad pictures" on tinder
so people are surprised to realize she's beautiful in person.
stricken by her brilliance.
He applauds the flawless strategy.
as it clearly worked on him.

They go on a few more dates.

First She takes him to a graveyard.
They talk about their Jiminy Cricket's
Shared demons, so familiar some
creep from behind gravestones.
push leaves from their path as they stroll along.

Then He bring her to lighthouse.
A thick cold fog.
they switch between belting 90's pop hits
and laying peacefully up at the sky holding hands.
Music.
sound of bleeding hearts rubbing against each other.
bow and violin.
how soon they flint and steel.
spark too hot, too real, too soon.

later, in bed.
His heart leaks something.
He wonders if he looks suspicious, or if he's going undetected.
when she pushes "did you just say you love me?
Tired, and teary eyed, He says:
"Peaches."
It was their safe word.

As she starts in, Clearly not satisfied,
"C'mon, I know I hear-" she interrupts herself.
"oh... you said peaches."

See, he could have said yes,
It would have been more honest.
but this was only their third morning waking up together.
even though his heart wanted to say it again.
his Jiminy Cricket doesn't care if he loves her.
it knows he can't take care of her.
Jiminy knows that when he goes home tomorrow, she's a poem.

So He says peaches.

With ink stained fingers this happiness swells
Like a ripe peach on a summer day

• grape gatorade
• baby powder engraved earrings
• glow sticks
• the smell of old holy pages
• peach cobbler
• complement circles
• heterochromia
• crazy hair
• wet clothes
• dr pepper
• cold rain against the humid air
• glances people steal


(j.a.r.)

Here is the word I
would place alongside myself.
A neon placard, no
hesitation.
An ugly-shiny presence within
the confines of my breath, the
whispers in my hair.

Bittersweet.

I split it open into near-perfection like
two halves of a peach or
two sides of a brain.
Right, left,
right -
I don't even like peaches.
But I offer them to you.

My 'sweet' is a sucker-punch candy on
your tongue, you confess. Like
licked-off icing, 100%
perfect.
You love it. You love her.
But it's only half of -

The 'bitter' I hand over, all
slap-dashed with hurt and
hope that
maybe finally
you'll be that boy who holds the glue to
put me back together.
Pick up
the halves of the half that
stop
your tongue and
put me back together again.
Would you do that?
Of course you
don't.

It's okay.

You cannot, I cannot deny,
the 'bitter' is grinding, grating,
binding
and I don't tell you that
I'm tired.
So tired
of pouring sugar on it,
with my hands all out of breath. Pouring
sugar
that's only stolen.

I went to our place.
It was rainy.
It was cold.
It smelled of peaches;
the thing you thought of,
when you thought of first kisses.

I went to our place.
It was rainy.
It was cold.
It's funny how fast
that peach can mold.

if a sound could be grainy
like a photo with the ISO too high
over-compensating for the light that shone too dim
through the patterned curtains in your bedroom
in your mother’s old house
where the peaches tasted better in water than in sugar and that had never
ever happened
not since you were three years old when your grandmother
who was not yet too old to do much besides eat TV dinners
and watch ‘the price is right’
before your grandfather’s funeral
where you ruined your velvet dress
spilling cheap coffee all over the bodice
(if it had been good coffee the situation would be
entirely different)
the sound of you
exhaling like a train rolling right past the house
shaking the walls and the floor and the sofa
less and less as it gets farther away
you sound
grainy
like a photocopy
and i can’t find
the original

Among breezes and peaches
and cool summer nights
we wait for the perfect moment.
delight fills our nostrils with the sweet smell of lust
we pray for the Lord to be with us.

Between food and ***, it's difficult to decide which of these pleasures we enjoy most. Washed my hands, I'm a good host. Besides, eating with my hands is the part i enjoy most. The flavors spilling over, dripping, running down my wrist. The potency and aroma, only one thing smells, and taste, like this. Your lips; soft, fleshy, texture, the juices running down my lip - Drip, drip. The taste, I'll ****, lick, bite or sip;the clear liquid so thick, your mainstream, runs quick. Concave crevasses, my fingers still fit. The colors of the flesh, delight, changing shapes, move and shift. Fuzzy little peaches, mangos wild, for fruits like this. Taste of heaven, leaves a stain that sticks. Without the tender fruits of your *****; none of this would exist.