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i know  you mean nothing to me.
i know you wish you did.
it's unfair for me to call you
to bring you in from the cold
promising a warm bed and
a body to sleep next to.
i promise arms
and lips
i put on perfume
and lipstick.

i tell you
what you find tonight fades in the sun
you say you dont mind
but the rest of you
sings a different song.
i choose to ignore it.

tonight
we love each other
tonight
we are everything
we would
ever
need.

i wish it was this easy
and sometimes i think
maybe the love will come later
with some work.
but we both know
such lies can
ruin lives.
so we take it one night at a time
making no promises
nothing sure
nothing steady
plunging heart first
into a tornado
hoping it will spit us out on
a sunnier side of the world
They are strangers now, separated by their worlds and walls.
There is no chemistry, no spark, nothing special.
They are simply strangers, sharing a couch.

One is autumn, one is spring;
one likes talking, and the other? Listening.

If walls could talk, they’d weave a tale so tragic.

In the beginning, he was sun, and she was moon.
At the ending, she was running, but he was leaving.

In the beginning, there are many things.
There is music, and laughter, and broken strings.
They have cooperation, and commitment, and promises.
Her mom gives them glasses, his mom gives them dishes.
She has her charcoals, he has his guitar.

At the ending, close to the ending-
There is his guitar, her laughter, they’ve broken things.
And that is all that is left.

Promises and glasses, dishes and hearts.
A year of trying and losing is written on the walls;
the wallpaper- peeling, the curtains- ripping.

He clears his throat, she stills- hoping.
“I’m sorry,” she hears, and it’s okay.
“I’m sorry,” she hears, “that it’s ended this way.”

I’m sorry, she hears. I’m sorry, that it’s ended this way.
I’m sorry, she hears. That it’s ended this way.

“It’s ended this way?”
“I’m ending it this way.”
sip
the coffee was cold.
a day old.
i heated it.
poured it.
fought through it.

put on a b-film.
something about crap
films made our lives
feel more fulfilling.

we laughed.
exposed every flaw.
we held hands.
snuck
loving glances.

i have to wake up in three
hours, but all i can think
is life is luck,
even for the dumbest of us,
when you tell your
eyes to open up.
Copyright 2010 by Joshua J. Hutton
now I'm a shipwreck in a sundress,
an aimless, shameless coquette –
a first kiss, a second guess,
a weak and wobbly pirouette.
I've been to so many places,
and you've been to so many places.

I met this sailor at a port,
in Portland,
still young, still smiling.
He had a girl back home
in Italy, Sicily.
And like a hot day's breeze,
his smile greeted me.

I met this homeless woman,
with two kids,
walking in the streets
of Tokyo,
with a man somewhere
in the near future,
she hoped.
I told her
I hoped too,
and I gave her some spare change.

Maybe you've been to Portland.
And maybe you've been to Tokyo.
Maybe we've met the same people.
Maybe you made them happy,
and I met people who
were those people
because of you.
Maybe

We already know each other,
and you've already made me happy,
like I know you will.
June 2010
Some days I am Ana's teacher, some days she is mine.
This morning, we look through her kitchen window,
the one she can't get clean, cobwebs massed
between sash and pane. The sky is blue-gold, almost
the color of home.
Ana, I say, each winter
I get more lonely. Both of us would like the sun
to linger as that round fruit in June, but Ana says
it's better to forget what you used to know...
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the. mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

— The End —