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Isabella Ford Jun 18
The heat pressed down on my skin like your hands once did—
slow, steady, unforgettable.

My mouth was dry, my body aching—
but it wasn’t water I needed.
It was you.

The Strip pulsed around us—
neon lights flashing, voices rising,
solicitors reaching from every side.

But the moment your fingers found mine,
the chaos faded.
You made me feel safe in a place built to make people forget.

The feathered girls brushed past like temptation,
the phony cops played their parts with easy charm.
They moved through the crowd like they owned it—
but none of them saw me.

Not like you did.
Not with that quiet intensity,
not with the calm in your touch
that steadied everything inside me.

You held me close like the night belonged to us.
Your eyes found mine
like you already knew how the rest of it would go—
how the Strip would disappear,
how the only lights that mattered
would be the ones reflecting off your skin.

Even before you touched me,
my body was already aching for you.

But it wasn’t just want.
It was the way you looked at me
like I was seen.
Known.
Wanted in every way.

A man slept in the gutter like the city had swallowed him whole.
A woman begged, her eyes rehearsed.
A barefoot soul wandered through the noise,
forgotten.

Everything around us was dressed in false light—
but you,
you were the truth beneath it all.

And when we were finally alone,
you didn’t just undress me—
you unraveled me.

Soft at first,
then with the kind of hunger
that left me breathless.

You touched me like I was something sacred,
like you knew every part of me
deserved to be remembered.

I think about that night more than I should.
How you whispered things
that still echo in places I keep hidden.

How your mouth moved like prayer across my skin.
How you made me forget
every version of myself that came before.

People talk about Vegas
like it’s unforgettable—
but nothing there ever touched me
like you did.

And sometimes,
when the world feels too loud again,
I close my eyes
and return to that night—

not to the Strip,
but to you.
Is the day perfect  
if there are no birds to wake you  
but there is lemonade?  

or if you live on Lemonade Street  
but there are no birds on electric lines  
because the utilities are underground.  

no birds twittering in trees  
just the sweet sour taste  
of lemonade puckering your mouth  

the scent of bonnie braes in the air,  
standing still in a pitcher of ice water,  
tangy, acidy,  
still sweeter than most.  

My neighbor,  
who is always preening and  
chatting up the neighbors,  
makes hers with bubble gum bursts and *****,  
a lemon drop of punch drunk love.  

If I want birds and trees  
I just walk across the street  
to the older neighborhood with telephone poles—  
some line birds,  
but mostly garden gnomes and bird baths.  

My dog delights in yanking me there,  
scattering the conferences  
of cardinals and jays in mid song  
from worm feast  
to the trees.  

Here, old men and women  
in shorts and summer dresses,  
holding citron nectar  
in tall glasses with seeds, rind and pulp,  
delight in their perfect day  
filled with lemonade and birds.  

I don’t know anymore  
if they are thrilled with the trill  
or fed up with the cacophony  
of untuned bird calls,  
birds in all the trees where they belong,  
silent at night.  

Deep in the forest  
filled with leaves,  
I suppose their diamond-throated song  
is a mournful dirge  
for when a tree falls  
silently, deadly in the green.  

One day our small community saplings  
will bloom,  
and the days will be filled  
with the miracle of birdsong  
and drinking lemonade  
on Lemonade Street.
how holy it is
to be the reason someone tastes like ruin.
I lick the cruelty off your lips
and say thank you.
Orpheus Listens to the Requiem of His Own Undoing  
                (after Leonard Kress)


Orpheus hears his songs played on broken strings,  
A dirge plucked soft by an old man with blight.  
He laughs at this fiasco, cringes as it rings,  
Echoes bending, whispering through trees at night.  

Behind him, nova bass lines swell and roll.  
He imagines the dancers weaving in a line,  
The wading birds now gone—silent in their toll,  
Their scattered iambs left to beachgoers’ time.  

He turns back—loses his time, theirs too.  
He pleads; time will not rewind for beggars.  
He cries; sorrow will not soften, nor undo.  
He sets his vision on a new career—foreteller.  

He fixes his fate, throwing his guitar,  
Its keys, its chords—all song surrendered to riptide’s pulse.
Cadmus May 20
🙏🏻

They feast with the wolves…

Bark with with the dogs…

Weep with the shepherds…

Guests at every table,

but a pillar at none.

Call them seasonal?
Situational?

Maybe,
Socially fluent? morally absent?

Friends to everyone…
and loyal to no one.

☝️
This poem reflects the nature of surface-level friendships. those who adapt to every group but commit to none. Present in moments of ease, absent in moments of need.
Cadmus May 26
🎭

I’m the fire that craves,
and the frost that forgets.

Love me well,
and I’ll burn eternal.

Cross me once,
and I’ll silence the sun.

Your move.
This piece expresses emotional duality… the ability to feel deeply while remaining capable of complete detachment. It’s not a contradiction, but a warning: intensity flows both ways.
Cadmus May 22
I am tired from tomorrow…
Its not even here yet.

Tired from yesterday…
Its not even here anymore.

I am tired.

🌂
This poem captures the weight of chronic emotional fatigue - the kind that doesn’t wait for events to unfold but clings to both memory and anticipation. It’s a quiet admission that sometimes, simply existing across time is exhausting.
Cadmus May 19
🚪

If your past knocks,
don’t answer.

It’s not here to talk

it’s here to wreck
what took you years
to rebuild.

Let it knock.
Let it wait.
Let it rot.

Just don’t forget:
some doors
are better sealed
forever.
This piece is a reminder that not every return deserves a welcome. The past, especially the parts you’ve outgrown, often carries the power to unravel healing. Strength lies not in revisiting, but in refusing to regress.
Cadmus May 19
Sometimes,

you find yourself walking alone.

not because you’re lost,

but because you know

the road

so **** well.
This poem reframes solitude not as confusion, but as clarity born from experience. It honors the strength of those who choose to walk alone - not from loneliness, but from hard-earned wisdom.
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