Emma and Jack
1 A.M.

Emma: “Hey you asleep…?”

Jack:  “…if I say yes… what happens?”

E: “Look, I think we should get a divorce.”

J: “From each other or from reality altogether?”

“Funny. Do you dream anymore?”

“Never. Last time was when Paddy died.”

“Your high school friend. The one who got shot by the cops?”

“Yeah. The night I found out I had a dream that went on for hours.”

“About him?”

“No, yeah, it was all about life after death, there were angels, big rooms, lots of light.”

“What happened again?”

“He robbed a bank. Paddy and a guy named Chris Ranier. They held up a bank, like with shotguns”

“Why? Why would a 17 year old middle class kid rob a bank?”

“His parents were down, not starving, so I don’t know.”

“Where did he die again?”

“At a bus stop. They were waiting for a bus. If the bus had been on time, the cops would never have found them. At least that’s what the cops said.”

“And the Chris kid lived?”

“Yup, took a bullet through the heart but he lived.”

“So our divorce.”

“Why do you want to get divorced again?”

“Research. I want to know how people react.”

“ To what?”

“To you and me. What happens when you tell someone you are divorced?”

“In my case women start to salivate.”

“Women don’t salivate. They plan.”

“They scheme you mean. I thought writers made stuff up.”

“Wrong. Writers discover, we ‘re explorers.”

“You know I’ve got an early morning…”

“Scheme is sexist by the way, just sayin’”

“So is salivate, sleep tight”

Fourteen days I let the breeze move through me
the rain move through me
sunlight and mist both -
the completeness of the womb.

We came to the top of a steep concrete hill
looking for the place a tree once was, and
is no longer, swallowed alive by
other aspects of nature who stood proudly
in the shape of their meal. We could not recognize
the place from the directions, because
la vuelta means “turn” but
revuelta means “revolt”. We found it finally, soaking wet:
a little enclave of cloud, so precious it must have
been put out of reach of anybody
so heedless as to spoil it.

Around you the thick trunks of violent vines:
grown strong from eating, calcified by time.
They form your shape, and they themselves shape
what the world remembers of you.
Above you, a half-oval of sunlight
suggests another way you might escape.

Here, I am beyond the reach of
tasks, advice, anything at all to do -
my earthly needs are paid for, and the rest deferred -
except to have things to say to my companions.
So how is it, then, that I say nothing?

There’s something wrong with the words.
The word for turn: virar.
The word for throw: tirar.
The word for look: mirar.

Nothing as complete as a sentence, and
the attendant in the parking lot convinced of my fluency
wonders why I should want to throw myself anywhere.

Forgive me. Your author -
strangled in his sleep by wicked words -
he might have known how to finish this
how best to fill the shape of a tree
again with cellulose and xylem,
or tell the birds they may resume their roosting.
Your sightseer: he does not.
His raw language and wet hair
have left a hollowed shape
where a man should be.

Who invented spooning -
companionship’s most uncomfortable posture -
and who invented the phrase?

Who ever saw
a packed set of spoons, nestled
bowl on bowl, trunk on trunk?
Who ever bought their spoons?

Spoons are, in my experience, inherited.
They have never known the fit of another,
perfectly like them.
No, they came from, in one case,
a shuttered restaurant. Another,
grandmother’s old tea set and they
barely sit well together -
one too wide, soup-ready
the other shallow, the better to pace out
the sips of hot broth
their edges brush and clink; arms and hair entangle
but all is forgiven (they are both spoons, after all)
and all rest together in the same drawer

- but then, neither do we.

Nobody opened the path out of darkness.

Scientists assembled - in a clean room in
New Mexico working tuition time -
a three-thousand megapixel sword
in the reflection of whose blade
we saw the bleeding comet
and, flipping the hilt in our hands,
saw it spark as it traversed the edge,
and from its position knew our place.

The universe instructed us to sing
and we refused. Instead we watched
its jaunty hand tick time away
and call for decrescendo.
We played with bombs.

If it all feels perilous, it is.

Watching the white face of the moon
for mushroom clouds
we rutted, and learned new recipes
and held out forks to one another saying
“taste”.

And when the fear has passed -
  which it will
  for the world is perpetual
  because we live in it -
it will be locked untouchable in the past
where fear cannot go.
The fear instead will be:
of the million flavours we have made
and fed each other, is any a part of us still?

By Lauren Salvo

We wake up to the untold stories of us
that they think they know,
the voices in the background that scream
doubts into our ears.
Listen to me and I will listen to you.

They smell like jealousy, but
we smell like passion.

Their thoughts of us can be so sour,
but your lips taste so sweet.
They look at us and they can tell.
But don’t be afraid to open your
blue eyes to what we are
and what we can be.

Their words hit us like a ton of bricks,
but we hold each other to heal the bruises.
Now, you can close your eyes and fall asleep
right here next to me.

As the sun shown its last brightness,
And the sea's sparkles began to fade,
There I saw an angel watching the sunset,
Then she turned as we gazed.

Her eyes shines brighter than stars,
And when the cold breeze blows,
Her long hair brushes her cheeks,
And thus made my heart skipped.

We stared at each other long enough,
To make my cheeks blushy red,
As I clumsily tripped over a rock,
Then I saw her vanished away.

(Guy's P.O.V.)

We
were
strangers
for far to long,

We
had ears
for the same song,

We
weren't sure
what was right,
but we knew what was wrong,

Good to know a place
to belong.

You left
a white lighter
on your coffee table

so that when
we'd go back
to collect your things

from a crime scene
we had been to
countless times,

we'd know that
you died
thinking yourself

a King of Rock and Roll.

But really
you were
the prince

heir to
all the love
dad had to give,

bestowed upon
year after year
with the kind of too much faith

that only
parents
can give.

You heard
their lessons
about the world

being your oyster

but never payed
attention
to how to care

for
your
people.

You were
always
about the show,

You'd give all
the glitz
and glamour

off of your very own crown

thinking that
if love didn't sparkle
people wouldn't know it was

there.

But then
someone gave you
purple-hazed glasses

and suddenly
the world was
love in your pupils,

they flooded
your irises
with a shine

to which no amount of
family jewels
could compare.

Your eyes
had seen
radiance

and all you had
to go back to
was flaw

you saw
a life
that was hard

and surprisingly heavy
for being so
empty,

And you just
kept chasing
the smooth blues

that would never hurt your ears

or play you
the old song
of wasted potential.

Even as you wandered
popping and
repopping your ears,

our love was
dull to your
rock and roll lifestyle.

I know how much
you missed how it
was before

you got discovered by it,

eager and seething
to sink its hooks
into another good one.

Instead of
writing your own
song,

you faded
into the old
one.

And now,
I've lost word and
lyric,

melody is
ash
in my pen

because the music
wasn't in me,
dude,

it was in you.

And now the record
keeps playing
through the air,

but none
of us
want to hear it.

When you went,
you left us with
a ****** white lighter

and you took the music with you.