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Her legs crossed, propped
on a dressing table. Slip
ghosting her thigh, slippers
half-off her feet.

The lamp hums.
Light thick as honey
along her shoulder,
pooling in the hollow
where sweat gathers.

The air is wet enough to breathe.
We do.

Three profiles, two mirrors.
In one, a towel on a hook,
a door half-open to the hum of waves.
In the other, her face, mine behind it,
blurred by salt we carried in.

How many doors make a room,
how many mirrors make a person?
You can’t tell what’s reflection,
what’s escape.

This motel
on Tybee Island,
where the paint blisters,
where she holds my gaze in the glass,
and the air buzzes with gone things.

A dare. A mercy.
She’s the one
who knows the frame,
has lived inside worse,
keeps still enough
to make the story ache.

When she moves, it’s small,
a breath against my throat,
as if to say stay, or stop.
Salt cracks where our skin
touched the wall.
I look too long, pretend it’s art.

The camera isn’t ours.

The light burns low.
The shutter answers.
In the glass, no one moves.
  17h Jill
Anais Vionet
Peter (my bf) and I are keeping it modest, practicing the art of the small things. Among our repertoire of pleasures are simple conversations, after long, exhaustive school days, in non-technical language.

Shall we wax poetic-ish?

Ever, my heart had blazed as if branded by fire.

Then love finally arrived to sweetly quench that unseen, smoldering blaze..

Fate, for a while, like scissors, came between us.
But having thus far proceeded, I did sorely miss the confections of closeness.

So, I shamelessly plotted to conjure sordid-reunions.

You may **** the force of my weaknesses and think me devilish,
but I am, after all, a living, female thing.

Do I relive that awful trauma? No, living in the past is like reheating nachos.
No one wants that.

Or do we? We take so many pictures, now-a-days.
Are we sore afraid of losing our yesterdays?

.
.
Songs for this:
matters of the heart by lovlaine
Oh Honey! (I Love You) by Peach Tree Rascals
Backyard Boy by Claire Rosinkranz
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 10/04/25:
Repertoire = a set of skills or routines a  person is prepared to perform
  1d Jill
Jimmy silker
Fingertip to pixel
Quill nib to vellum
Ochre handprint
Upon cave wall
Attempts
To describe heaven
The stars are surely
Captured most
In image
Word
And song
For they are
Both
Gate
And cage
Since the dawn
And ever long.
A warm pink night,
heavy with hazy air,
presses close to the senses
as the sun goes down.

No breeze drifts in,
only thickness,
a stubborn heat that clings.
The sky wears gray
with a faint wash of color,
as evening tips toward darkness.

On the grill door,
white twinkle lights
sparkle softly
small magic for the weary.

And on the terrace floor,
a beautiful white cat, marked in black and gray,
sprawls in search of comfort.
But the air offers nothing
only stillness,
and the hush of waiting.
For the cool down.
  5d Jill
Kiki Dresden
I met her in the shelter-
sunset bleeding through curtains
thin as onion skin,
coffee breath, rising like a ghost,
a scarf at her throat knotted like a girl.

She said she wanted to die on that white floor.
Cheek pressed to porcelain,
her skull pictured cracking like cheap tile,
the vision circling her the way buzzards
circle a broken dog.

Glass sang through her apartment,
kitchen, hallway,
the sound of promise cracking its teeth.
She described the river of wine
creeping slow down a yellow wall,
apples rolling like lies
across the crooked floor.

Her wrist, she said, had no language then:
fingers slack, neck loose as an unlaced shoe.
She clawed for a phone perched on the sink-
nails on plastic - the phone’s arc, plunk - silence.
The world went out like a dropped bulb.

He flung their wedding flutes,
cards still tied: To a bright future. Much love.
He punched plaster until his knuckles bled.
She woke to the sound of him naming the room,
as if syllables could stake a claim.

“Take me home,” she whispered,
sick with sleep, sick with forgetting,
and the woman in me,
who knows the floor of grief,
leaned down in that wreckage
and braided her hair with dust.

She folded the scarf, smoothed her boots.
I could see what home had taught her:
to make herself small, to learn the shapes of staying.
I listened like a ledger, tallying bruises,
balancing bowls of soup.

In the margin of my ledger I wrote her name,
a balance carried forward.
do you
Wonder Why
it’s the negative things
we tend to believe
When people practice
to deceive

Nine people say
Something good
Yet we glam onto
The one negative
Whether we
Should

I’m a daft
Old cow
A fat sough
Plain Jane
Implications
Of a name

I never
Thought
I was
Something
I was
Not

Brow beat from
Head to my feet
I could never
Measure up
The pedestal
Is too steep

We are the worst critics
In a cynic world we create
We never give  
Ourselves a break
Go easy
For goodness sake

I was never one of the pretty people
Gilded Castle, Golden steeple
People in glass houses should never throw stones
Far Too much to atone
He who is without sin,
Cast the first stone

I’m A rough ragged Rock
With intentional purposeful refinement
Even while blemishes are detected
My inner self starting to show with no objective
Patient polish purposeful perfection
I became a brilliant diamond

Now I shine

I have grown in my reflection
No more negative rejection
Without stern objection
I’m No longer a whipping post
Live love, laugh Father Son Holy Ghost
Journey to self be a loving host

Inspired Songs;

1) Dream by Aerosmith 1973

2) I got a name by Jim Croce 1973

3) Be good to yourself by Frankie Miller 1977

4) Shining star by Earth, wind and fire 1975
This is one of the areas of grief I’m not sure which one. I’m just going with the flow working out the emotions best I know dealing with my brother’s death. He died July 15. We haven’t buried him yet. I haven’t let go. I think that shows. I’m going along having an OK day and a break out in tears not sure why the song I thought no reason at all really but every reason under the sun my emotional roller coaster has just begun I fear this might take a while I’ll put on a fake smile and Sam OK when it’s really not that way
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