My thoughts have become excruciatingly apparent, achingly transparent. The soil-scanned pores are presented in all their vainglory. To my eyes, I am left stifled and cruel, undeserving of the fruits of my godless labour.

Don’t have a laugh now, ******. This is no entry of any sort, nor am I looking for divine affirmation in the ink that I lay down. My umbilical cord to the heavens is severe  and grotesque, buried under the soot of history’s accords (abandoned scripts, all they are).

This room is cold but I am not, you see? I used to be the stoic; the unabashed abuser of generosity. My shoulder used to hold seven reigns by its lonesome. I should do so well to be fragile, much like I am now. Is it not easier to love this way? Parsimonious as my kindness may be, is it not so pure at the moment? I believe I love, greater than I ever have before.

I should. I shall not sacrifice the gilded mechanisms inside my head for love, no. Perhaps I will love, though superficially. However facetious my care is, is that not what love is portrayed to be? A lover is soon made a loser, for their misfortune or complacence. Stay my hand, dear. Do not let me morph into that lover for you. We do not deserve such a prognosis, not even the thought of one.

i like you a lot
but i know that
she is the one you prefer

i have seen how you look at her
and the way you talk to her
and i know that
she is the one you're after

it's funny though
that she does not seem to realize
how much you're into her
but i know that
you two are perfect for each other

here i am
supporting the idea
of you and her
even though i still really like you

It is not
the Tree,

...it is,

-Me.

I see. . .

in a garden
filled with a thousand beautiful roses,
I am the wilting one.

sunlight blankets the room,
eyes protest
and soon
the heart awakens the aching chest.
this life i've been lent
make sense with you.
time misspent;
even lies sound true.
these arms find purpose,
lips evoke passion
and fingers in motion
bring about the prose.

"I can’t figure it out.” She said.
“I like cigars,
and pretty dresses and crossing my legs.”
She paused,
then continued,
“And I like smoking cigars in pretty dresses while crossing my legs.”
She uncrossed them,
then crossed them again.
One smooth limb over the other.
Just like that.

“But I never seem to have a lighter on hand.
Could you— sir,
please light my cigar?”
“You see, I have no pockets to hold such things and my purse…
Well,
You’ve confiscated that, haven’t you?”

“Thanks.” She breathed,
and inhaled,
and exhaled;
Sluggish wisps of smoke dissipating into the air.
Just. like .that.

“I didn’t know L'homme was into women who smoke cigars in pretty dresses while crossing their legs", She said.
“I mean, how was I to know?
I only noticed him noticing me.
It was probably the way my hair was pinned up like so,
Or the way my lipstick was a deep, dangerous rogue,
Or the way I sipped my champagne…
That made him walk over.”

“But I never asked him to light my cigar
Or comment on my dress…
Or ****** my legs.
So when I whacked him up top over the head with my glass,
I bet he never expected it to shatter and split his skull like so.
He dropped so sudden, sir. I…”
Another ringlet of smoke, a sigh, an uncrossing and crossing of legs again.
“I had no clue,
what else to do,
But to sit still in my pretty dress, with my legs crossed, smoking my cigar trying to figure out...
Just how I'd committed ******.”

It all stemmed from some longing,
he thought.
Something missing
or was never there
to begin with.
Either way this led to the prose
ans so there was no choice;
no exercise of will really,
but rather a duty.
-If other eyes peeked at the work,
then so be it!
For once committed to paper,
the work was done
and so was he.

The scientist moved from table to table, beaker to beaker. She adjusted her goggles on her nose and sniffed, turning a vial on its head, tipping its content into another.
She stood back and with frantic, excited gleams playing in her eyes observed the mixture fizz, fizzle, pop, sizzle and flow over.
She hmmed and this is where I stepped in, asking her, what it is she was doing. What experiment was she carrying out? What question she was attempting to answer.

She, beginning an attempt anew, picked up a vial containing a sweet-scented liquid and stepped up to her table again.
“I’m trying to see...dear. I’m trying to see...”
“See what?”
“The balance. What is the right amount...” She breathed this last sentence under her breath like it was a question more to herself than an answer to me.
“The right amount of what?”
At this, she turned to me.

“Of Love.” She said.
“For you either love too much or too little.
Or you either receive too much love or too little love. And in each case, it leaves a dreadful feeling in one's stomach.
This cannot be healthy. It isn’t. So I must find out this equation, solve this puzzle for it is so perplexing.”
She turned back to her vials and beakers, murmuring under her breath all the while. “It is so perplexing...it is so perplexing...”

Sweetheart, don't be fooled
by my thick veils of lovely
language, this curtain behind which
I can easily disappear. I sing
a song which invites both
fact and fiction to the dance floor
to perform a number they didn't
know they knew. My tongue
wraps their love with a cherry stem--
still tied in a bow--though
they both long for more
than the other
will allow.