Sweet-lipped Psyche's pale white skin
All the men in Greece dragged in.
And the poor girl's dark brown eyes
Led Aphrodite her to despise.
For Psyche truly was a beauty,
Reputed as brighter than Aphrodite.
If Aphrodite was a dark red rose,
Of which we've written poetry and prose,
Psyche was a pure-white Aganisia
For which they wrote a deep-sea saga.
But she knew it was sore unwise
To find herself level with a Goddess' eyes.
The only proof needed for Psyche
Was the sad fate of the maiden Arachne,
Who challenged Athena to a weaving contest,
And though her tapestry was judged the best,
It was she that ended as the melancholy loser,
For Athena punished her with the life of a spider.
And so it was that Psyche knew
Aphrodite wold claim her life too.
So Aphrodite sent her son,
The lovely, winged, holy one,
Whose golden arrows fly at night
And relieve bored lovers of their plights.
She sent Eros to shoot his arrow
And pierce it through to Psyche's marrow,
Then set before her a crocodile,
The scaly terror of the Nile,
With which she'd fall in love straightway,
And then she'd come to rue the day.
For crocodiles have no love to give,
So it would eat her, and she'd cease to live.
On the sleeping Psyche Eros descended,
Long before the night had ended,
In whose dainty breast to shove
A golden arrow poisoned with love.
He prepared to bury it to the hilt,
But a drop of love on him was spilt,
At the moment he saw her eyes, dark brown,
Look to him and stare him down.
Then Eros went back to his mother
And told her he could not wed another
Who did not shine quite so brightly
As his sweet-lipped brown-eyed Psyche.
So spiteful Aphrodite cursed
Psyche through her red lips pursed,
That the girl would find no husband
Among God, animal, or man.
And Eros this so greatly angered
He could no more with arrows linger
At the foot of lovers' beds
To foster love in their young heads.
The entire world then ceased to love
Whether it walked on foot or hoof.
Whether it swam or flew on wing
It could not love nor gain others' loving.
When love no longer circulated,
Aphrodite it aggravated
To see her temple lying bare
And to feel the gray growing in her hair.
She told Eros he'd have what he desired
If only he would kindle love's fires.
So at the mountain, Psyche's family offered her
And she was borne away on the back of Zephyr
To Eros' golden gay abode
That he and his ghostly servants called home.
In the golden rooms she wandered by daylight,
But she lay with Eros in the dark when came night.
She knew not who her darling was,
But called her ignorance a test of trust.
Never to look upon him by day,
She continued in this way,
Until she longed to visit her family,
Which her husband granted her gladly.
But he held her, and he warned her
Not to let her sisters persuade her.
"They may try to tear you away
By telling you gruesome stories." he'd say.
Then, trippingly, from Olympus she jumped down
To walk the streets of her hometown.
She told her sisters her whole story
And they turned it into something gory.
"He could be a serpent," they'd say,
"Fattening you up for the day
When he can pop you in his mouth and eat you"
Unfortunately, she took their words as true.
"So, when he comes to you at night,
Just gaze on him by candlelight!
If he's a serpent, use this knife,
And you'll no longer be his wife.
But make sure not to spill the oil,
Or his waking will cause great turmoil!
We'll find out about that young buck!
Use the candle, the knife, don't spill, and good luck!"
She walked back to the palace at their behest,
Butterflies banging within her chest.
Could the faceless man with whom she'd spent her nights
Be revealed as a serpent by candlelight?
She did not have to wait for long
To prove her treacherous sisters wrong.
As she lay in the great soft bed,
The instructions tangled inside her head,
And lighting the candle, she almost fumbled,
But when she saw his face, she truly stumbled!
Eros' beauty knocked her senseless,
Leaving mortal Psyche defenseless,
And causing her to spill the oil, which smoldered
On Eros' godly golden shoulder.
He, awaking with a start
Was disappointed to his heart
That Psyche cold be so unfaithful
And make a decision so egregiously fatal.
Then, jumping from the casing, he flew
Out of Psyche's lustful view.
And she, for her part, suddenly found
That from the palace she'd been cast down
To a field of which she had no memory,
Or very dim, if she had any.
In despair, she began to flounder,
Then resigned herself to wander
Until she came to a temple edifice,
Which was, on Earth, Aphrodite's face,
And begged the unseen Goddess hear her out,
Trying her patience with childish whining shouts.
Aphrodite, trying only to divert,
Cast a basket of grains down to the dirt,
And told the weeping lovely malcontent
That if she sorted the grains 'fore day was spent,
She just may see her sweetheart once again.
All she had to do was sort the grain.
But Psyche, though her fingers were dainty and thin,
To separate the grains could not begin,
And sobbing, lay upon the stony floor
That was as cold as the Goddess had acted before.
The ants, which had been drawn to the golden grain,
Bore her load and relieved her of her pain.
In their famously sure and straight black line,
They each picked up a piece of grain so fine
That it might with ease pass through a needle,
And into order they the sweet grain wheedled.
Then at the very setting of the sun,
Aphrodite found the task was done,
And though she praised the poor girl outwardly,
Inside she felt the bloom of hate for Psyche.
So she set her down on one side of a stream,
Where on the other was a field of green,
In which lived Helios' golden sheep
From which she was to obtain some shining fleece.
Then Aphrodite left her there to play,
And flew to Mount Olympus far away.
But Flumen, God of Rivers, raised his head
To warn sweet Psyche from his riverbed
That the sheep were so fierce, if she but pulled one hair,
They'd all turn on her and eat her then and there.
It was better if she waited 'til midday
When the sheep lay down to sleep the heat away.
Then she could cross where the river rushes,
And pick the wool that had got caught in the bushes.
So Psyche followed Flumen's good advice,
And for Aphrodite's cruelty she paid no price.
Aphrodite's blood boiled when she saw
That Psyche had survived it after all.
Again, she tried to send her to her death
And charged her to collect water from a cleft
Which mortal humans could not enter,
And in which serpents would surely spend her.
But now it was an eagle came to her aid,
Who stormed inside and flew between the snakes,
Then picked a pouch of water in its beak,
And back out of the cleft to Psyche it sneaked.
Aphrodite, at her dastardly wit's end,
Devised a horrible place for her to Psyche send.
"Psyche, caring for my ailing son
Has drained each drop of beauty, every one,
From my former glory of a face.
Therefore, I command you to that place
Where Persephone dwells. Then you must beg
For some of her beauty, just a tiny dreg.
Then you may have my son, I give my promise,
As holding him from you has marred my face."
Then Psyche, with tears streaming from her eyes,
Decided the only way there was to die.
In what she had appointed her fatal hour,
She climbed up to the top of a high tower,
But her melancholy was so disturbingly great,
All the Universe moved to it abate,
So that the very tower she climbed upon,
Awoke and spoke to her as if a person.
"Psyche, there is a way to the Underworld alive,
So that you need not from my roofing dive."
And to the Underworld the tower gave her
A route and some directions just to save her,
Then it sternly warned her that not of meat,
Nor of anything but bread in Hades could she eat.
So she followed the Tower's path back down
And disappeared into the heaving ground.
And when she found herself before Persephone's throne
She asked to take a parcel of her beauty home,
Which the emotionless Queen of the Screaming ******
Without word placed in Psyche's quivering hand.
The hardest part of the impossible task being done,
Psyche headed back up toward the sun,
And, reasoning that she was to see her beloved before nightfall,
Decided to use some beauty from the parcel.
Inside she found not beauty, but a stifling sleep,
Which forever in its clutches would she keep
If Eros had not chancely happened by,
And wiped Persephone's sleep from Psyche's eye.
Then, carrying her on his back, he barged
Into the Hall of the Olympian Gods.
He bade them let him wed himself and Psyche
And disregard the protests of Aphrodite.
Then Jupiter, indeed, allowed it obligingly,
For he was a man who greatly enjoyed a party.
Ambrosia she was given so to seal
Her immortality and place her among the surreal.
Then after many years of love and laughter,
Psyche bore Hedone, their lovely daughter.
This is how the beauty of the Human Soul,
Triumphed over the beauty of lust and gold.
All this Eros and Psyche had to take.
All this they endured for their love's sake.
They demonstrate the purity of love,
That is admired by Gods above.
In the end, it is the pure Mariposa
Who is more deserving of ambrosia.

I'm on a train.

One of those red ones with black trimmed windows you can imagine rolling through the suburbs on the way to NYC. Not a subway car but a classier vintage with proper rows of cushioned seats and a lever to pull if there is an emergency. There are sparse shrubberies on one side of the tracks and the ocean on the other. Young trees and bushes stroll by.  A little wind is pushing off the ocean, massaging the car ever so gently back and forth as we move along. A gentle click-clack is on the tips of our ears.

We got on together. I hadn't known you for very long but the connection was stronger than anything I had ever felt or have since. You practically sat on top of me for the first few miles. Couldn't keep your hands off me,  staring in my eyes like you were searching for something lost but you couldn't remember what. The edges of your lips turned upwards permanently as if you were always at the verge of a laugh. You interlaced my fingers with yours and held on like you would be ripped away if your grip loosened for even a second. Slender fingers holding so tightly that they were becoming red.

You were excited to to be riding with me, about where we were going and all the things we would do when we got there. I would see you peer out of the corner of your eye, then lean over to brush your soft cheek against my budding stubble. Kissing and gently biting my lips insatiably. The suns rays coming in at an angle and lighting up your perfect smile and dimple.

I had to remind you we were in public.

I was lost in your blonde curls and the incense of your neck. I had fallen incredibly hard and so fast that my face hurt from smiling and my heart beat with vibrations I had never known. Not even a whiff of anxiety or neurosis. Some of the best memories of my life, as fleeting as they turned out to be.

I yawned and you put your finger in my mouth. I bent over to tie my shoe and you would poke my **** and laugh with your own reflection in the window, like this was the first and best joke of all time. Maybe it was and maybe it is.

The waiter came and informed us that a thing called "the bar car" existed. We both jumped at the idea. I didn't exactly notice at the time, during our excitement, but that's when the train started going faster and everything out the windows began to blur.

The bar car was a wild ride and we took advantage of our lo'cal. All kinds of fine wine, liquors and illicit substances were available. We tried them all. You were beautiful, your laugh infecting everyone around you, I was charming and held a captive audience.   It was a dark, loud and glorious blur. We were the life of the party and it chugged on till dawn.

We woke up in our seats, disheveled and discombobulated. It was dark out already. Did we sleep through the entire day? The train was slowing down, maybe approaching a station. The party was amazing but we were certainly paying the price for the black out. You moved over to the seat across from me to have some more space and lay down. I saw myself in the reflection. My hat, charm and smile from the night before had vanished. I must have left them in the bar car the night before.
      You had changed, beauty uninterrupted but different somehow. I couldn't put my finger on it. Irritated maybe? I invited you to cuddle and battle the hangover together but you ignored me. Like you couldn't hear me or didn't want to. I decided to let you be.

I got up to use the bathroom and thought I would go look for my scattered belongings. Maybe I could find a scrap of leftover dignity while you rested. I inquired to the conductor who directed me to the bartender in the bar car. He hadn't changed a bit, somehow untouched and unaffected by last nights antics that had effected me so dramatically.  Same black suspenders and white pressed shirt with impeccably slicked hair. I asked him what happened and if I had an open tab. While slowly polishing a rocks glass he looked up and made eye contact for a split second before looking away.
He said:  "Oh the bar car takes its toll. In the end we all end up paying one way or another". I still don't know what he meant by that or if he knew.
      I asked him if he found my hat and he said he would check the camera. We walked in to a small back room, while he was reviewing the tape, over his shoulder I noticed a tragedy.

We were drunk. I was going on to a group of new friends on one side of the bar, they were hanging on my words and I was eagerly explaining whatever nonsense they were drooling over. You were in the corner wearing that red dress I love, with your hair up in a tight bun. A few curls had escaped and brushed your high cheekbones, a thin line of pearls dancing delicately across your perfectly symmetrical collar. You were stunning and inebriated, swaying with each bump and motion of the train. A man wearing my hat put his hand on your side to keep you from swaying over and then he left it there.
I took a sharp breath.

It looked like you put your hand on his hand to move it but then it stayed and you both swayed together. As the air left my lungs and the blood drained out of my face I watched your lips touch the strangers. A small piece of my soul slipped away forever. I couldn't watch any further. When I asked the bartender how long it went on he fidgeted for a moment and uncomfortably muttered "quite some time". I never found my hat or the other part of me that left that day.  

The train slowed. I walked to the back, as far away from you as I could get, in utter disbelief. How could you? I thought to myself.
I mourned the loss of the you as I knew you yesterday, quietly and to myself. A tear  escaped my eye and rolled down my now fully formed stubble as I fell in to a random seat in mild shock. There were a few passengers back there so I had to pull together relatively quickly. After gaining some composure I knew it was time to get off. I knew we could never get back to yesterday morning though I would have said or done anything to do so.

The train had stopped. I went back to my seat and you were sleeping. I took my coat and gathered my things. The conductor looked at me confused as to why I would leave something so magnificent, I assume he had no idea what had transpired.   

I walked to the rear of the car and slid the door open slower than required. I stepped to the stairs and put one foot down on the step and the other on the ground. I stopped, rooted with my hand on the railing, lingering between two very different paths.
     I knew that it was time to get off, I knew this was the sensible thing to do, that I couldn't get past this offense regardless of how I had felt earlier the day before. The whistle screamed from the locomotive. The conductor looked at me and shook his head, I'm not sure if he was trying to tell me to stay or go but a decision had to be made.

The train lurched forward and I watched as the station slip away slowly. I sat in between the cars for a while and watched the ocean and birds. With a heavy heart and shoes I walked back to my seat. You were waiting. Crying. You knew. The bartender had told you. You didn't mean do do it, didn't realize what you were doing and thought it was me. He was wearing my hat and the whole world was blurry and dark.

I believed you. Self anguish mixed with alcohol was dripping from your pores. I knew you didn't mean it and were drunk, but could I ever forgive you or trust you again?

I loved you still.

I caught a glimpse of my reflection, a weaker version of myself looked back. As if an invisible chip in my teeth had developed and my shoulders lowered. The charming, confident man from the bar car the day before had been replaced. Something was off but not enough for anyone else to notice, just enough to know a change has happened.
       The train started to pick up speed again as we distanced ourselves from the station.  I second guessed my decision to stay but I didn't look back.

I found the man with my hat and punished him with a few blows in the dark. He knew he ****** up, apologized and took the beating like a man. I never got the hat back.

The engineer announced that we would be going through a tunnel soon and to turn on our lights and keep our hands in the windows.

It would be dark.  

We stayed away from the bar car for a while but the draw was irresistible. After a few hours we were there again but you never left my side.  Then you did. I was looking for you but you would disappear and not answer me when I called you name. The tunnel went deeper and darker and I didn't know where you were and I suspected you liked it that way. The train began to slow down again as we exited the tunnel.

I finally found you back at our seat, you had moved one row away from me. I asked you to come back, tried to hold your hands but you pulled away with vehemence. When I came back from the bathroom you had moved another row farther.
I knew I was losing you.
I begged you to return but you told me calmly that it was time for you to get off. At some point in the tunnel you had decided that you didn't want to go anymore . Your mind was made. You were going to catch another train at the next station.

When the train stopped I thought for sure you would reconsider but you didn't. Didn't even give it a thought. You just grabbed your coat and hat with one big bag under your arm. You kissed me on the cheek like a french stranger and were off. Going somewhere else on a different train. Just like that.

I rode the rails for quite some time by myself , many people getting on and getting off, passing me by. Every once in a while I would think I saw you at a station or in a **** though the window of another train. I often thought I could smell you but when I breathed deeper it was always gone. A ghost dancing on the edge of my senses.

A young girl in a headband got on the train. She was listening to headphones and dancing to herself as she bobbed along. She sat down in the seat next to me flashing a smile. She had a wedding ring on and I dismissed her immediately.  She didn't move from the seat or stop glancing my way. Eventually she confessed that she wanted to talk. I told her I wasn't interested but she persisted.  I hadn't talked to anyone on the train for quite some time and after some more mild persistence, I gave in.

We had a lot in common. We were both riding alone, desperately wanted attention and were thrilled to receive some.  After a few laughs she slid her hand in to mine and interlaced her fingers. I left it there. It was warm, comforting and wrong. She was married but I had been riding alone so long it felt good to have some company. She stayed and we talked. She was broken and I had a knack for fixing things. After a few hours of dramatic conversation I fell asleep with her head on my shoulder.

When I woke up  the train was flying up the track on the side of a mountain. Trees and rocks were a blur of green and grey. The engineer must be trying to make up for lost time I thought to myself.

The girl was asleep with her head on my lap. I looked down at her hand and the rings were gone. I woke her briefly to ask where they went. She said she didn't need them anymore and had thrown  them out the window.  She could of sold them, I said, but she said she just wanted them gone so she could be mine and fell back to sleep.  All of a sudden I couldn't breath. This train was roaring down the tracks, the once gentle click clack had become a loud hum. Suddenly too loud. This girl in my lap who had just gotten on the train wanted to stay. I considered her for a while as she looked up at me with big blue eyes, shining and wet, like a puppy in the shelter, terrified of rejection and desperate to be adopted.

At the peak of the mountain, just when the train began to even out, you waltzed back in to the car with a champagne flute in one hand and your bag in the other.

I don't know when or where you got back on, must have been a few stations ago when I stopped looking for you. Maybe you were wearing a disguise, who knows what you had been up to while you were gone. I'm not sure how long you were away but it was quite some time. That you had been through something was obvious, a new wrinkle had formed on your brow and you're once confident stride had changed to a cautious stroll. What actually happened out there I don't know.  I never asked and I don't want answers.

You looked at me and smiled. It was good to see that smile, like sun on my face on a brisk day.  You took a step toward me and then I looked down in my lap at the girl at the same time you did. I looked up. You and your smile were gone.

Everything I had begun to feel for this broken, head banded girl in my lap dried up like a puddle in  the dessert.  I quietly and gently nudged her awake and told her I had to use the bathroom. She put her head down on my coat and fell back into what ever trance she had been in, eyelids gently fluttering, eyes searching beneath them for what I would never give her.

I dashed up the isle and threw open the door, almost shattering the glass. The conductor glared at me and rolled his eyes as I barged past to the space between the cars.

There you were. Standing on the stairs with your head out the opening. The wind was blowing your perfectly formed curls around your head like a blonde explosion of familiarity. I yelled your name and you dove in to me. My senses erupted, my mind went numb as the train was nearing another station and I inhaled your essence greedily.

We moved to another car. I abandoned my coat with the married girl and never looked back. I hope she found what she was looking for. I  never could have been the answer she was so desperately seeking but I know I  helped steer her towards it.

You told me you had encountered some other people out there on the rails and they had reminded you of what we had when we first left the station. I never forgot.  

The train started to rock and get going again. We were back in the bar car and starting to brown out. We had to get off of this train right ******* now. In a desperate moment we looked at each other and put our hands, together, on the emergency brake cord. I looked in your eyes with your hand on top of mine. You kissed me while yanking down on the cord. Time slowed, the breaks squealed and everything exploded throwing luggage, people and the entire contents of the bar car in to a nondiscriminatory chaos . We got up off the ground, ran to the end of the car, dove off the side in to a soft patch of grass and rolled down a small incline. We watched as the conductor sifted through  the mess and interrogated the passengers, trying to ferret out the party responsible for pulling the brake. He spotted us off the side of the tracks and shook his fist while shouting every conceivable obscenity combination.

We laughed, held each other in the grass and kissed deeply.

We watched the train pick up speed and disappear in to the hills as relief spread over me.

You interlaced your fingers in to mine and we both looked out to where the tracks disappeared into the horizon, wondering how far of a walk it was to the next station.

Since Fortnite is incredibly bad,
I turn it off and get real sad.
As I sit there, a thought comes to me,
There's a better game, but it isn't free.
With a forceful tone and a loud holler,
I demand my mom to pay 30 dollars.
She buys the game, it's called PUBG,
The price of this game was worth the fee.
I fight my way to a Chicken Dinner,
I killed 6 men but I'm still a winner.
My mom barged in and yelled at me,
"How dare you game this late," said she.
I said "Sorry Mom," and gave her a shove,
She said "Game, game, game, my love."

Reunited

Walking down a path, where no man should ever go,
its dark, cold, damp and I'm moving very slow.
Feeling the walls that are covered in slime,
too many things happening at the same time.
So much hidden deep down in my soul,
not sure if I can escape this black hole.
Things I've done can never be told,
Sometimes life gets put on hold.
If only these things, I could mention,
it would relieve so much tension.
So many things, I just can't say,
if I did I'd be put so far away.
I've reached the point of no return,
next one who gets in my way, I'm gonna burn.
Getting more angry by the minute,
bought some guns in case I have to shoot.
This giant duffle bag is getting quite heavy,
I wish I still had my 57 Chevy.
Back then life was great,
Wife, kids, house, fence with a gate.
Then one stormy night, a car went off the road,
since that night my brain started to overload.
Fell into a deep depression,
lost my job, thanks to the recession.
Lost my house, lost my car,
all my dreams are now to far.
Walked into the place, I used to work,
hated my boss, he was such a ****.
Grabbed my guns and started to shoot,
all the blood was staring to pollute.
Shot as many as I possibly could,
don't know why, just thought I should.
Losing everything drove me insane,
I'm not making excuses for my brain.
Not long after there were hundreds of police,
there was no offering of a sign of peace.
They barged in and I resisted arrest,
I was shot several times in the chest.
I wanted to die, but always in style,
all I could see was my families smile.
Now we're back all reunited,
I have never been more delighted.
No one I shot that day ended up dying,
just some blood and a lot of crying.

Back when I was about ten or eleven, the only friend I had was the most beautiful girl I knew. Her name was Jessica and her and I did everything together. In school we were inseparable, always chit-chatting before, during and after classes. So much so that teachers bestowed upon us the annoying, yet endearing, encompassing nickname of "Jackica" - a combination of our names; Jack and Jessica.
     I was so thankful for her companionship, and thinking back it might have been a pretty uneven relationship, emotionally. I was an overweight and awkward Harry Potter fanboy and she was a cute little auburn-haired thing who could've won any Miss America Junior competition in the world, as far as I was concerned. She had the most piercing powder blue eyes. The kind that made my skin tingle and mouth curl up into a stupid smile at any given moment. I felt like she saw me, like she really saw ME. Not the blubbery flesh that coated my muscle and bones but what I was made of, the real me. And I loved her for that.
     Along with Jessica's physical blessings, she was also given an insatiable appetite for adventure. She loved to go to the park at night,  after the gates were locked and when everything was drenched in darkness. We'd hop the five foot chain-link fence and roam around the grounds. We'd go the water at the edge of the park and sit on the rocks, look up at the stars and take turns telling stories to each other with intent to scare the **** out of the other one.
     One humid night in mid-June, Jessica told a story that succeeded in making my skin-crawl. She always told decent scary stories, she was gifted in the art of fabricating tales of fright right on the spot, but this story really got to my core for some reason. I just felt uneasy as the words spilled from her mouth to my ears and with each sentence my muscles tightened and strained just from the mere tone of her voice as she told the story. She sounded serious, and she rarely did, even when telling these stories, but with this particular one it sounded like she really believed what she was saying was cold, hard truth.
     What she said was that she heard a story that her older brother's girlfriend had told her. It was about a house on the outskirts of town, placed just a few hundred yards from the mouth of the woods that lined our little suburban utopia. She went on to say that in the house was nothing all that scary. She said it was an old house, a very old house, as it was a log cabin that was built in the 1700s, when the town was first being settled. Supposedly, everything in the house was just as it was back then, little kerosene lamps sitting on home-mad oak tables. The maple-wood floors would moan and creak at the slightest hint of any weight being put on them. And then she said that no one had lived in the house since the man who built it died, around 1785.
     Needless to say, Jessica wrapped up the story by proclaiming that we had to find the house. And we had to go inside and see for ourselves what was so creepy about it. Being the scared, chubby little wimp that I was, I immediately rejected the idea. There was no way I was going to try to find a place that would only succeed in making me **** my pants in front of a girl, especially the one whom I'd placed the delusional label of "future girlfriend" on.  But, as I subconsciously expected, Jessica talked me into it with just a few graceful words: "I'll kiss you if you come with me."
    
     The very next Saturday night, Jessica and I put on some dark jeans and t-shirts and took the bus all the way to the last stop, the edge of town. We hopped off and right in front of the stop the woods were already waiting, I took a deep breath as Jessica's eyes lit up. She took my hand and pulled me as she ran, me clumsily waddling along behind her all the way to a little dirt pathway that paved the only marked entrance we could see. She asked me if I was ready and I shrugged, saying something like "I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be." And so we started down the path. As the tall trees swayed in the wind, I dragged my feet with  Jessica always about five feet ahead of me, as eager as ever. We walked for probably ten or twenty minutes before the foot of the cabin was before us.
     At first sight, it was a very old structure. I'd never seen anything like it outside of paintings in my history textbook and this Abe Lincoln documentary I saw on PBS. I never knew houses like that stood the test of time. But there it was before me, two stories high with wooden shutters clad in severely chipped paint and a big oak door that looked stronger than any door I'd ever seen. Jessica took my hand again, smiled enchantingly and rushed me forward.
     Once at the door, I was speechless. It didn't look as old as the rest of the house and whoever made it obviously meant for it to last a very long time, taking extreme care in carving it out impeccably and sanding it until it shined with a professional touch. Without a word, Jessica rapped on the door. Three hard times, and when no one answered after thirty seconds, she rapped again, and again. She shrugged and turned to me, asked if we should just go in. I said no and she frowned.
     "There's no way we came this far just to go back home with nothing," and then she wrapped her hand around the rusted doorknob and turned.
     The door opened with no hesitation as she pushed it all the way in. She stepped inside, and I followed. The first thing I noticed inside the cabin was the creaking floors. They creaked louder and longer with each step, affirming that part of the story, making my blood run cold. We looked around, going from room to room with wide eyes. We were amazed that we made it, that we got inside and now we were actually investigating a place that no one else supposedly had gone before. Truth be told, though, it was nothing special. There wasn't much at all to see, save for a few tables, the creaking floors and some very old paintings on the wall. We were just leaving when we noticed something on a table nearest the big oak door. It was a metal box with a small lock fastened to the front of it.
     "We have to open it," Jessica proclaimed after a second of curious inspection.
     "There's no way were going to find the key," I told her.
     "So we'll break the lock, Jack. Duh," she replied in her sassiest tone.
     I just shook my head as she grabbed the box and began to furiously slam it in the wooden table. The sound echoed through the house, exacerbating it and making me shiver from head to toe.
     "I don't know if you should keep-" but my sentence was cut off my the lock flying off the box and clinking onto the floor below.
Jessica smiled again, very pleased with herself and looked to me.
     "Wonder what's inside...," She said, lifting the top half of the box open.
     After an initial and cough-inducing puff of thick dust subsided, the contents of the box were revealed. It was a letter, written on old-school parchment in heavy ink. In neatly laid Victorian script, the likes of which I had never seen so simultaneously neat and scattered, like it was written in a hurry or during a time of distress, was a love letter. Well, a kind of love letter. It was addressed to a woman named Tania and it was signed by a William. It told the story of how William had loved Tania since they were children, and Tania was now to be married to a Pastor named Hensley. William told Tania how he couldn't bear the thought of her ever being with anyone else and that the fact that she could never truly be his was killing him. Literally. He ended the note by confessing his plan to **** himself.
     I took a step back, but Jessica just stood at the table with her eyes glued to the crumbling parchment in her hands.
     "I'm leaving," I said after a few moments, mulling over the sorrow that this poor man must've felt. I headed out the door, Jessica following. The walk back through the woods to the bus stop I couldn't get this feeling of dread from subsiding. It seemed like I felt what William felt, but not in a sympathetic sort of way. It felt like I was William and the pain he felt was actually my pain. And then I noticed that, rolled up tightly in her fist, Jessica had taken the letter with her.
     "Why'd you take that," I said, sounding thoroughly upset. "That's not yours to take, go bring it back!"
     "No way. There was no way I was going there and coming back with nothing to show for it," she said, gripping the letter tightly, her knuckles almost whitening.
     I knew how stubborn Jessica could be and I knew whatever I said probably wouldn't even phase her in the slightest so I did what I did best and just shrugged it off. I found myself wishing I could shrug off the terrible feeling the letter put deep inside me just as easily as I could Jessica's stubbornness.

     Over time, Jessica and I lost touch, as kids of that age often do. I grew up, lost weight and opened up, making more friends and acquaintances, no longer hanging onto the thought of Jessica being my only love. I didn't talk to Jessica all that much. Just once in a while we'd meet up and have a chat over some coffee or pizza. We had both changed and morphed into young adults with different agendas and dreams and I had no problem with that. But on one such meeting, Jessica began to worry me. She said that every now and then she'd open her desk drawer and take the piece of parchment out and read it. Over and over again. And lately, she had been opening the drawer more and more, she said that she felt drawn to it. Like something about it made her feel this deep-seated dread that no horror movie or scary story had ever made her feel. She said that she felt like the letter was beginning to take a toll on her. And, by the look of her, it didn't seem like she was lying or kidding around like she always used to love to do. She had dark circles underneath her once striking eyes, which were now darker and had taken on an odd and ominous color. I was scared for her. And I told her so but she hugged me and assured me she was alright. I wanted to believe her, and I tried to, hugging her back and telling her I'd talk to her soon. But when she turned her back I knew something was very wrong.

     I'm writing this now because a few weeks ago Jessica's mom gave me a call. When her number came up on my cell phone, I think I knew, deep down, e actor why I was getting this call but I pushed the thought away and said hello. Jessica's mother called to tell me that a few days before Jessica had gone missing. The only indication to her whereabouts was a note she left with the words "cabin at the edge of town", and below that, instructions on how to get there. Her mother said she took the note and hopped in her car immediately, and made it to the cabin. She said she was breathless by the time she got to the cabin but forged on and barged inside and looked around. She said she found nothing and was about to leave when she noticed a small door behind the big oak door she had swung open to get inside. She opened the little door to find a stairwell. She climbed it, calling Jessica's name all the way, sobbing and wiping tears from her eyes. At the top of the stairs was the attic. And she said she almost died herself when she saw Jessica. She was hanging from a wooden rafter on the ceiling. And next to her was a severely decayed skeleton, dangling from a rope only a few inches away.

There is no better ******* feeling than having someone forget you exist. Having someone miss your calls and ignore your texts. They turn away when you walk by. They hear you calling but look around for an escape. They forget your ******* birthday. They channel all their love for you into someone else. A stranger. You've been there for them even when they were a ***** and had no other friends. When they wanted to end their life and had no one else to talk to. When they barged into your door crying almost every night. And a ******* stranger comes into the play and I feel you slowly slipping away. You love them more. I know. Do you love me at all. If not then say so. Please. I can't take this passive agressive behavior. It's swallowing me whole.  Stop pretending to know me, you don't know ****. You don't know that im a jealous ***** and I'm not happy for you. I want you to leave them. But you seem so content. So much more hopeful than you ever were with me by your side. I hate hate hate watching you two. It hurts. There's a heaving in my chest. I'm just done. Go be happy.

she barged so uninvited in my space,
so futile were my palms and outstretched arms,
forbidding her from entering my place,
mistrusting her that she may bring me harm,

rebuttals--counterpunches to my claims
that she was just another soulless ghost--
had penetrated fences, and her aims
to win my heart succeeded more than most,

but here we are almost a year from then,
i've pushed her off, she shares her heart with one
not me, but one who seems above all men,
and i have lost where once i thought i'd won,

now i'm the one who's barging in her space,
my own rebuttals falling in disgrace

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

the magnolia was a bit of a *******
(as far as trees can be *******)
and like very many other things—
like japanese candy from the Fugi Mart in Greenwich
                                      (across from the McDonald’s and next to
                                             the music shop where I got my viola)
and like pokemon cards and nintendo gaming systems
and like Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” on a pink CD in a Hello Kitty radio
—that ******* of a magnolia was a distinctive taste
of the years I spent growing up in my house at the end of Wyndover Lane.

the ******* thing was almost perpetually in bloom.

it barged into both spring and autumn
(it didn’t give a **** about timing)
those pink and white spongy petals padding the ground
and at first you think it’s ******* beautiful
sitting in the crook of the trunk where it split into
                                                                two large
                                                       separate branches
tilting your chin back to catch a glimpse of blue between fat blossoms

then the petals start rotting
water-retentive little *******
and you can’t sweep ‘em away because they stick to the patio
brown clumps slipping under rubber soles
my dad lets loose a string of curses
and the magnolia shakes with laughter

I tried pressing the petals in a notebook once
while I was in that naturalist phase it seems all little girls go through
when you make fairy houses out of bark in the backyard
and put flowers between the pages of books because it feels
oh-so-much-more significant
than picking a pretty thing and showing it to mom

but the magnolia seeped through my spiral ring
and when I opened it up a month later they were dry tan papery things
not at all velveteen and rosy
and there were garish pink bloodstains all through the ten pages
on either side
magnolias don’t preserve well
except, honestly they do don’t they

then of course there’s that childhood tragedy that everyone has
when your dog got hit by some soccer mom’s suburban
or your teddy bear was lost in an airport
or maybe you just liked to cry because some things
were just really worth the tears at the time

but when I came home and found out they cut down my ******* ******* of a magnolia

I bawled

there wasn’t
even
a
stump.

On a summer morning,
Monkey had awoken early,
His eyes all sleepy,
And his hair wildly curly.
Swoosh,
He opened the door,
He had to use his mouth,
Because his tail was way too sore.
  Slam,
Monkey shut the door behind him,
His friend Panda,
Was called hungry, hungry Jim.
Monkey was off to work,
His tail dragging on the floor,
He was sure to be back in time,
To feed his family of four.
Although monkey was guilty,
He missed work twice,
Monkey was confidently sure,
His boss would be all nice.
Monkey had walked to the glass,
It said no dogs allowed,
For sure he was a monkey,
He walked in and proudly bowed.
His boss said he had to leave,
For he was not a monkey,
But monkey had explained,
He was very chunky.
The boss escorted his out,
Angry as could be,
For sure he was a monkey,
Can’t his work boss see?
He decided to go food shopping,
At the nearest grocery store,
He wanted to get home quickly,
So his family wouldn’t be that poor.
Monkey walked to the grocery store,
His feet were aching,
It was 10 miles away,
This was a big risk that he was taking.
Monkey got there very fast,
Quick as in running,
It said only monkeys allowed,
Wow that sign was stunning!
Monkey had barged in,
All the monkeys were looking at him,
He was told to get out,
So then he visited his old friend,
Hungry, hungry Jim.
When monkey had arrived,
Jim had told him he was a dog,
So Monkey left ashamed,
In the new deep fog.
Monkey had decided to go home,
And Comfort his 3 young ones,
He’d see his wife,
Oh, he loved them all a ton.
Hungry, Hungry Jim smiled,
As if he was really, really bad,
He decided not to eat him today,
He saw him so sad.
Monkey’s house
Was just around the corner,
It was a pretty color white,
But most of the time,
There was not much light.
He had opened his house door,
So lonely and ashamed,
He was a monkey,
He had claimed.
Monkey flickered on the light,
Nobody was there,
His wife and kids left him a note,
“You are a dog, we could not bear”.
Monkey was so depressed now,
He walked to hungry, hungry Jim’s house
He had tiptoed in,
And was as quiet as a mouse.
Jim had caught him,
And asked why he was not home,
Monkey had explained,
His house is just a comb.
Monkey said his family had left him,
Because he was a dog,
They think I don’t belong,
And am just a plain old hog.
All of a sudden,
The panda ate him whole,
And the only thing that was left,
Was his sad little soul.

I remember you telling me before that you saw yourself as a jigsaw puzzle.* I never understood you then because why would you compare yourself with a thing that requires pieces. You explained that you have 6 pieces in you, pieces that made you, created you. Pieces that were the reason for the person you are today, pieces that helped you function, in other words, pieces that made you whole. That was why you called yourself as a 6 piece jigsaw puzzle. But then one day, you told me all of those pieces were missing. You said someone or something took it away from you and you have no idea how to get them back. You explained to me thoroughly how they were removed from you. The first piece was removed when you were in your room one night, hearing your parents fight, yelling and arguing, telling hurtful things to each other. So you decided to put some headphones on and played some music so you wouldn’t hear their shouts but then they barged into your room saying one of them is leaving and you have to decide which one of them you are coming with, you pretended to not hear them but deep inside of you, even though how loud the volume was, it suddenly stopped without you muting it, because all you could hear was their love for each other slowly fading away. The second piece was removed when one day some unwanted visitors came into your house and they told you they call themselves as demons and that they brought you things that you cannot possibly return; you opened the boxes and see that those things were called depression and anxiety. The third piece was removed when your so called best friends told you they were always there for you but when you were sitting on a bathroom floor filled with blood and hopelessness nobody came to pick you up.  The fourth piece was removed when you someone told you they will help you find those lost pieces but one day she was just not there, and instead of finding the missing ones, one of the remaining was lost again. The fifth piece was removed when you saw him, the love of your life, loving another being that wasn’t you and when you asked why he told you he just couldn’t deal with someone who was like a puzzle that wasn’t solved, you were about to tell him you were once the one he was looking for but then he told you, oh scratch it, a puzzle that could never be solved. And the last and final piece was removed, because life took it away from you. And then suddenly all of those pieces were lost.


I want to help you, i want to do everything just to find those pieces. But you’ve got to help yourself also. You are the biggest help you need, and maybe, just maybe, those pieces can be found in the most unexpected places. Perhaps the first piece can be found when you’re listening to your favourite song and the lyrics felt like blankets that comfort you when it’s cold and suddenly it felt like home. First piece found. Perhaps it’s the feeling of waking up at 5:30 in the morning, feeling ******, and when you went outside, you saw the sunrise, and realised that somehow you can rise again like that. Second piece found. Maybe it was sitting in a cafe, sipping unnecessary caffeine, looking at the people who were passing in front of you, thinking of how much they’ve been through, and still surviving like you, and somehow that made you feel better, that’s why your face formed an unnecessary smile. Third piece found. Maybe it was when it rained so hard, but it doesn’t compare to your tears, you cried and cried, as the rain poured and poured, then the rain suddenly stopped and the sky formed a rainbow, you looked at it and think that maybe your tears can form colours too. Fourth piece found. Perhaps it’s when you can’t sleep at night, so you just look at your scars, before you thought they were ugly and disgusting, they did nothing to you but made you remember how much of a mess you are, but now you look at them in a different way, they weren’t battle scars, because battle was an understatement on how difficult the things they had overcome. And now you see them as a reminder of how much of a soldier you are. Fifth piece found. And maybe, it was when you decided to go to an art museum, you were fascinated by the wonderful paintings, then you thought, you used to be like those works of art; beautiful and important. But then you suddenly heard one painting, whispering you something, it said, a masterpiece is still a masterpiece no matter how broken it is. Sixth piece, and final piece, found.


So, darling, If by means life took those away from you, you should do everything to get those back. And yes, you will tell me, nothing can bring back those pieces anymore, but you can be a puzzle piece that is solved without the pieces you had before, you can find those pieces without asking for help, you can find those on your own, you can make pieces all by yourself. It doesn’t matter how fast you puzzled it out, the only thing that matters is that you solved it. *You solved the jigsaw puzzle. You solved you.  **And guess what? You will be whole again. You will realise you always was, and that is the reason you will not let anyone or anything, change that again.

When the pain gets to real
I take a deep breath and inhale your sweet scent
I listen to the memory of your saying my name.

When the pain is too hard to bear
I picture the day that the universe no longer separates us

When I see again
I'll ask why you didn't give me a chance to say goodbye
"You just left me to fend for myself", I'll say.
" you were all I had, the light at the end of my tunnel".
And you'll just smile, in awe of how big I've grown
In awe of how much you've missed me too.

But...
When the pain how's away, so do you.
So does, your scent
Your voice
The feel of your skin
And when the pain barges in,
I remember how quickly you barged out

On a summer morning,
Monkey had awoken early,
His eyes all sleepy,
And his hair wildly curly.
Swoosh,
He opened the door,
He had to use his mouth,
Because his tail was way too sore.
  Slam,
Monkey shut the door behind him,
His friend Panda,
Was called hungry, hungry Jim.
Monkey was off to work,
His tail dragging on the floor,
He was sure to be back in time,
To feed his family of four.
Although monkey was guilty,
He missed work twice,
Monkey was confidently sure,
His boss would be all nice.
Monkey had walked to the glass,
It said no dogs allowed,
For sure he was a monkey,
He walked in and proudly bowed.
His boss said he had to leave,
For he was not a monkey,
But monkey had explained,
He was very chunky.
The boss escorted his out,
Angry as could be,
For sure he was a monkey,
Can’t his work boss see?
He decided to go food shopping,
At the nearest grocery store,
He wanted to get home quickly,
So his family wouldn’t be that poor.
Monkey walked to the grocery store,
His feet were aching,
It was 10 miles away,
This was a big risk that he was taking.
Monkey got there very fast,
Quick as in running,
It said only monkeys allowed,
Wow that sign was stunning!
Monkey had barged in,
All the monkeys were looking at him,
He was told to get out,
So then he visited his old friend,
Hungry, hungry Jim.
When monkey had arrived,
Jim had told him he was a dog,
So Monkey left ashamed,
In the new deep fog.
Monkey had decided to go home,
And Comfort his 3 young ones,
He’d see his wife,
Oh, he loved them all a ton.
Hungry, Hungry Jim smiled,
As if he was really, really bad,
He decided not to eat him today,
He saw him so sad.
Monkey’s house
Was just around the corner,
It was a pretty color white,
But most of the time,
There was not much light.
He had opened his house door,
So lonely and ashamed,
He was a monkey,
He had claimed.
Monkey flickered on the light,
Nobody was there,
His wife and kids left him a note,
“You are a dog, we could not bear”.
Monkey was so depressed now,
He walked to hungry, hungry Jim’s house
He had tiptoed in,
And was as quiet as a mouse.
Jim had caught him,
And asked why he was not home,
Monkey had explained,
His house is just a comb.
Monkey said his family had left him,
Because he was a dog,
They think I don’t belong,
And am just a plain old hog.
All of a sudden,
The panda ate him whole,
And the only thing that was left,
Was his sad little soul.

Its the words that we hear, the life that we seek that makes us impeckable.
 
I listen deeply to your soothing voice, cherishing each word you tell me.
 
You used me.
Broke my heart.
Than dated my best friend.
 
You made us fall into a gab, made us hold on to the past for dear life. Things will never be the same all because of you.
 
She said she was sorry, but sorry doesn't mean anything when you can't accept it. I lost you. Than I lost her. The two most important people in my life.
 
I lost hope. I tried to converse with my peers but all I ended up doing was bashing her. The one you stole from me. They got tired and stopped trying to make me happy like I once was. Like I was when I was with you.
 
Each day, I would walk the halls to see her with you. My anger would boil in my vains, and all the memories between us would hit me like bullets. All the times you told me you loved me. All the times you held me close, when you never let me go. All the times you wishpered in my ear how much I changed you. All those times were gone, forgotten, like a gust of wind, you forgot about us. But I could never forget, even the countless times I tried its too hard. You left a whole in my heart, one that can never be perpared.
 
Than I see you. See you with her. I feel the pain once more. The urgeing sensation to graspe you from her grip and make you mine once more. To be able to call you mine once more.
 
But that can never happen. Or so I thought.
 
The days pass by that your with her. That you are caught up in every aspect of the one I used to call best friend. Now I only call her words that are beyond my reach, ones that I regret the moment they leave the tip of my lips. But I stay loyal, I never spread her secrets. Nor do I hope she will fail. Instead, I wish her luck with you; the guy who made my heart bleed with hate, you changed me. Some might say its for the better but all I can say is you changed me in a way that I can never be pepared again.
 
The sun sets, the moon rises and the stars are twinkling in the dark sky, when my phone rings. I see your name. The name I spit on with hate. I let it go to voicemail not wanting to hear your voice, scared that if I do the tears will start again. I wonder how that's possible, since I wasted all my tears on you but yet I'm proven wrong its possible.
 
Your voicemail is cut short. I hear your voice, its strange at first but then I fall deeply in love once more with the way you pronouce my name. Full with love and admiration. I'm falling for you once more. Falling slowly, and slowly. But when the end is near I think of you and her. The pair who made me suffer all those nights, the ones who made me cry myself to sleep.
 
Then I fall full speed into the whole, the rocks crashing on top of me. I scream, and scream untill I realize I am stuck. How much I try to push my way through there is no use.
I am stuck in your wrath forever.
5  years. 
 
5 long years filled with related concepts always bringing my thoughts back to you. 
 
I tried to forget. Belive me. But somehow its like you are carved into me like wood. I could never forget you. 
 
Its been 5 years since I last saw you. I wonder each morning when I wake up if you changed. Or if you still have that charming smile, and that flirty personallity But the thought that comes across me the most is if everyone falls for you as hard as I did or it was only me. 
 
You made my heart bleed that senoir year. You made me fill endless emotions towards you, and all I got in return was a wink and a "hey baby we didn't say we were exclusive" 
 
Those words burned through me. Leaving me with only hate to deal with. I made a vow with myself I would forget you. But it was impossible. Every where I turned I saw your flawless face within my reach. Your pulmp lips wishpering my name soothingly making me fall only deeper in love with the fake you. I made a character out of you. One which loved me with all its heart and cared for me endlessly. 
 
I tried to believe it was true. That there was such a thing but once again its only a fantasie. Soon I will be brought into reality to see you with her. She who shall not be named. 
 
Its the day that changed me once again. A day which you made me choke and feel the emotions you cast on me once again. My phone vibrates, for a moment I belive its a dream as your name blinks on the small screen. I feel the anticipation arising throughout me. Why would he be calling? I thought while picking on my nails. My hands shaky, I picked up the phone. And once again I fell beneath your spell. 
 
"Florence..." I heard your voice say. The world spinning around me I was almost lost in your voice. Snapping back into reality I prayed my voice wouldn't brake, that it would be stable but once again life is against me. 
 
I cleared my thraot, the curses I was getting ready to say formng in my mind. All the things I wanted to remind you of ready to come bursting out of me. But at that moment only one thing came out. One word. "Jake....." I heard myself say it. The way my voice said it, it was as there hadn't been 5 years between us. And we were just back on that night, in senior year, when you held me close and wishpered to me. 
 
I didn't realize it was quiet untill I heard ask me if I wanted to delete this message. I saw I had a miss call from you. You of all people. I was gettng ready to blast you but all I could think was if I should call you back. But then my phone rang, and I saw your name once more. 
 
One voicemail. That's all it took for me to rush to the phone and want to hear your voice again. I picked it up, feeling the nerves arising beneath me, the goosebumps starting to form on my arms. "Hello." I breathed into the reciever. 
 
"Florence?" I heard your voice ask. The same voice that I heard on the voicemail, the same voice that you had over me the years before. 
 
I tried to compose my voice, trying to make it like I forgot you. But in reality it was the exact oppisite. 
 
"Yeah, its me." I said in a strained voice. 
 
Suddenly slience struck upon us. None of us said a word. Just the dead selience between us. The tension high. 
 
But I didn't mind it. 
For what was there to say to the man who destroyed any ounce of belief I had in me? 
To the man who left me when everything was wrong. 
Now he calls me, I know what I must do. 
But in the end love does a funny thing to you; no matter how much you try to lock someone out, deep beneath the depths the right guy always finds the key. 
 
You foiund the key, opening the door slightly I heard your voice. Looking around me horror crept into my whole body, making me frozen in place. "......I was a **** and idiot...." You trailed off on the reciever. Barely listening to your words I was too caught up on the way you made me feell, the way you made everything appear perfect.
That night, the night you barged in and put me under your spell once more. Compelled by you I acted like your puppet, mimicking your every movement, following your every order. The distance between us fulled with tension. The anxiety of seeing your face again, uprising beneath me, while I took each step cautously to the Diner.
 
The Diner.
The place were everything had once been perfect between us. You would play with a stroke of my hair, I would giiggle in apparation as your gaze would be locked on mine.
Everything completely perfect.
 
Now, as I step foot into the diner, the goshtly images of us by our daily table, the one in the back corner. For a moment I could swear I saw us giggling and smiling at eachother. But as I look back the figures are gone and all that's there is an empty chair.
 
I walk in, immidently I am greeted by a middle aged waitress. Awe shown on her wrinkled face. "You here again?" She squels in delight. I looked at her puzzled.
 
"Your a legend here." She said, her eyes gleaming. "You don't remember I had been your waitress everyday when you guys would come. Your love so pure and magical it made me believe."
 
Suddenly the images were flooding back into my head. The ones of the giddy waitress we used to make fun of. The one we thought had a crush on you. We had laughed it off, you would remind me how I was your only one. But now it all fit into place. She hadn't been watching you, she had been watching us., mesmerized by our love that's what she had been doing.
If only she knew.
If only she knew that our love had failed, that you had cheated.
 
Our love had once been a blossoming flower, now all it was was a distant memory.
 
A gust of wind pulled me out of my daze. I noticed the waitress had been stareing at me all along with questioning eyes. I knew I should have been nicer, more apealing but this went along with all of the things I wish I was.
 
The sound of an schreeching door being opended caught my senses, everything hapend so quickly. I saw his face. That face which had haunted me all these years. The one which appeared in my dreams, day after day, I would wake up sweating, screaming his name for help. The hysterical cry I wouild scream, but he would never come. Nor would he answer my calls.
 
The anger boiling up in me once more, I swiftly forgot the love I had felt for him earlier this day. I wanted to remind him of everything. All the hurt he caused me, the tears shed on his behalf. I hated him for everything.
For the way he made me blush when he would wink at me.
For the way he caused me to act in sivere ways.
And for the way he made me love him so deeply that I had to make myself angry at him.
 
You were a few feet away from me, enough for me to reach out my hand and touch you. Everything around us was silent. It seemed as though all eyes were on us. I could hear the distant sounds of a cricket and I was definite you could hear my loud breathing or the accleration of my beating heart. Pounding against my chest, it acclerated with each cautous step you took.
 
I could smel your chlonage, your famillar smell rininging up the senses which have been held hostage for so long. Your aroma taking up the air, ******* out all the oxygen making it hard for me to breathe. Taking deep breathes, I couldn't help but feel compelled for a moment. I would have done anything you wished.
 
The awkwardness hit upon us. All we did was stare at eachother. Unable to speak I was hoping you would start. My mind blank, full-speed I tried to skim my brain for a word, anythjing. Everything seemed forgien to me. I felt useless. Parralyzed.
But I couldn't help but realize you were stareing at me with the same baffled expression as I was to you.
 
A word escaped your mouth. Your voice sounding like bells, having a musical ring to it. It caught me off gaurd, causing my heart to skip a beat. Just like the old days.
 
Looking around me I noticed the cracked wholes in the wooden walls, the hardwood floor beneath us, dusty with names carved into it. While you stared at me waiting for a response, my eyes skimmed over the floor beneath us, desperatly searching for it. That one thing that would remind me of what you did. So that I wouldn't fall for you once more.
There it was::
'Jake&Florence-F;&A.;' But starein
g at it closely, I noticed the one thjing I had been looking for. The word 'Florence' had been crossed out and replaced with 'Nicole'.
 
My best friend which you stole for me.
Bringing my attention back up to you I fought back the tears which had been trying to force there way out.
 
"Save it." I spat, not before letting the heel of my shoe dig into the wood earasing our names from the hardwood floor. Forever.

Pizza--the only I want to poor my feelings onto
Because when I think of its filling capacity--
Its carb-heavy, fat drenched, and sugary-savory goodness--
I honor the people who continue the artisinal craft.

Pizza--it's the food for all hungers.
It fills you with energy when you're high,
Just after a win with a cheery, rowdy gang of five.
It's the traditional topping on the pie.

Pizza--All and everything, when the time calls.
When the emptiness cannot be filled,
Let it be filled with years of associations.
All in good company, Pizza, my best friend.

So I met a new person today--quiet and resourceful,
She was counting her inventory,
Solving a problem set or learning a new trick.
I barged in while she put aside her life for mine.

She said, "What may you have, sir?"
"A medium with pepperoni," I said, "and linguica, please".
That was all that's said  as she carried on her fees.
"That'll be $18.05," and a shot of guilt charged me.

Pizza, though poor my feelings how expensive the taste!
When, just then, she collected the money
The pizza was all too simply done and I was on my way.
I was the one left, saying, " Well, enjoy your weekend!"

But as I drove and the pizza aromatized,
Neither she nor I were free from capitalized.
A self-disciplined pizza artist, stripped of her dough,
Like the boy who made chocolate with a molinillo.

On a summer morning,
Monkey had awoken early,
His eyes all sleepy,
And his hair wildly curly.
Swoosh,
He opened the door,
He had to use his mouth,
Because his tail was way too sore.
  Slam,
Monkey shut the door behind him,
His friend Panda,
Was called hungry, hungry Jim.
Monkey was off to work,
His tail dragging on the floor,
He was sure to be back in time,
To feed his family of four.
Although monkey was guilty,
He missed work twice,
Monkey was confidently sure,
His boss would be all nice.
Monkey had walked to the glass,
It said no dogs allowed,
For sure he was a monkey,
He walked in and proudly bowed.
His boss said he had to leave,
For he was not a monkey,
But monkey had explained,
He was very chunky.
The boss escorted his out,
Angry as could be,
For sure he was a monkey,
Can’t his work boss see?
He decided to go food shopping,
At the nearest grocery store,
He wanted to get home quickly,
So his family wouldn’t be that poor.
Monkey walked to the grocery store,
His feet were aching,
It was 10 miles away,
This was a big risk that he was taking.
Monkey got there very fast,
Quick as in running,
It said only monkeys allowed,
Wow that sign was stunning!
Monkey had barged in,
All the monkeys were looking at him,
He was told to get out,
So then he visited his old friend,
Hungry, hungry Jim.
When monkey had arrived,
Jim had told him he was a dog,
So Monkey left ashamed,
In the new deep fog.
Monkey had decided to go home,
And Comfort his 3 young ones,
He’d see his wife,
Oh, he loved them all a ton.
Hungry, Hungry Jim smiled,
As if he was really, really bad,
He decided not to eat him today,
He saw him so sad.
Monkey’s house
Was just around the corner,
It was a pretty color white,
But most of the time,
There was not much light.
He had opened his house door,
So lonely and ashamed,
He was a monkey,
He had claimed.
Monkey flickered on the light,
Nobody was there,
His wife and kids left him a note,
“You are a dog, we could not bear”.
Monkey was so depressed now,
He walked to hungry, hungry Jim’s house
He had tiptoed in,
And was as quiet as a mouse.
Jim had caught him,
And asked why he was not home,
Monkey had explained,
His house is just a comb.
Monkey said his family had left him,
Because he was a dog,
They think I don’t belong,
And am just a plain old hog.
All of a sudden,
The panda ate him whole,
And the only thing that was left,
Was his sad little soul.

There once was a pond off the Astrillian shore,
Where a billion clams lay underwater, they snored,
Day after day, tides change to tides,
Yet the life of a clam is still quite a bore.

Until one day an otter, all spryly and nimble,
A prince from the infamous pool down the thimble,
Crossed the old straight with his men through mud and through wimble.

Valiantly striding his conquest was simple,
Representing his people in search of a love life to kindle.
He was quirky, and boisterous, and hard to ignore,

Splashing and thrashing about the good peoples shore,
A good lookin' pup, he swam round in circles,
Converting the Astrillian Algaeans to Murkles.

The clams weren't slow to catch on to the show,
For clams are very attentive you know,
And soon by council & seminar they mouth-fulled their garbles,

"Who yonder this monkey that endlessly wharbles?"
"Are you daft kind sirs?" asks one clam as she snarbles,
"It seems you old men have lost all your marbles,

That is the otter, his highness all the way from Port Schwarble!
He only plays cowbell, throws barbells, and a million such marvels,
It's an Astrillian holiday as far as I yarble, hmm"

She stops,
It's indeed very clear she's been pinned as kalopsious,

"My dear" one clammy clam-clam firmly speaks,
"I see your 'kidz-bop' as they say has given you gleecks,
Your highness, is an otter, we'll be extinct within weeks"

The elders agree and farble on lke sheep,
"The end is near!" the little ones squeak,

But none brave as Mandy,
This little clam candy,
Would even think that moving was handy,

Why, confronting a prince sounds totally dandy,
So she pipped and she chupped,
Getting the elders all sandy.

As she made her way up to her prince, who was also quite randy.
Approaching her man of a million wonders,
She squeaked a fine hello over his rambunctious thunder.

He stopped and observed,
"What is this, hors' doeurves?"
He plucked her and licked her, obviously deterred,

When she snarbled and blushed ignoring the blunder,
"My name is Mandy the First, from the land of down under,

She smiled as he turned to his squire,
"A fine maiden to invite to the royal dinner," laughing they snired.
"I caught wind of your plans to marry" she twinkled,
"I just thought that I'd say that I'm young and I'm single,"

And with a wink she gave off her lady like signal.
The squire scoffed at the lady so simple,
"May I remind you ma'am, this is the prince from the pool down the thimble.
He's come all this way through mud and through wimble,
In search of a maiden to love and ne'er let dwindle,
Yet this peasant clam reminds me of a fire in my belly, so long ago kindled,"

He snirped, Mandy quirped as the prince caressed her dimple,
"You'll not lay your paws on her or her people,
This girl is totally braver than you and our sheeple!
It is decided that I'll be bringing her all the way to the steeple."

The squire grumbled a pox on both sides,
"You princox, we haven't eaten since Ides,
If you really cared so much for your lady,
Then let us first feast on her friends and their babies,
For what is a wedding if we're all riddled with hunger and rabies?"

"Nay squire, for you are a bigger one,
Your princoxious gluttony far exceeds the range of the Astrillian Sun"
"Ooooooooohh!!" his guards hollered and bothered, oh but he wasn't done,

"If you really care for your stomach all the sudden,
Then come at me brother, make me your wet monkey mutton.
See if I care for your metabolic process, you square,
For nothing could separate me from my princess so fair."

And so they charged and they barged and splashed all about her,
As his guards cheered them on into brotherly slaughter,
Witnessing the madness, Mandy would rather be chowder.

As she quietly wept for her hunk of an otter,
She noticed the elders behind her surface the water.
"What do you want?!" snobbing she totally snared,

The elders snooted and bitterly declared,

"We warned you," they flarbed,
"Their kind is brutish and dull," they spat from afar,
"The feud between peoples is older than tar"

Mandy flushed beet red and crying she clacked,
"Your ignorance prevails clams, for that is your only knack,
This man loves me and I love him right back,
In fact he's saving us all from becoming a snack.
And if he succeeds I'll never see you again,

I'll never work your sand-bars, or attend colleges of mermen.
I'll never sing songs or clean up your dens,
And you'll all just be grumpy old clams forever, and then,
When I am queen I will not be so mean.

I will unite all the clamsfolk with our predators keen,
We shall not be afraid and they shall not come to prey,
And who knows maybe we'll all get along someday,"

And with that, the squire cried "Uncle!"
And the prince let go of his sleeper-hold struggle,

"Now will you praise your lady you poor jester thuggle?"
"I do, I do your highness, til death I shall juggle."
And so the otters and clams conjoined the whole island,

With only some leftover haters to beguile,
And within seven days time
People gave up on fear,

Threw out their hunger,
And then it became clear,
With only time left to ponder,

As the big day came near,
At the cathedral they concluded that love lasts much longer,
That really,

Whether one be a clam or an otter,
It is only together that we shall become stronger.

Stolen the shawl from the shoulders of night
Slipping away with the dawn
Folding down the duvet, the new day
Stretching glossy nailed sentinels to
Rub the sleep from lashes of tell tale
Dreams that took mundanity into
Fine wine and rich red realms

Fresh out of tactics to ring in favours
The sheets depart my limbs and
Water connects skin on skin
Fluffy spurs washed away clean
Spun out of secret doors into the unknown
Shoving me, nudging me, reminding me
I’m heading to reality

Tipping my head toward the warm air
The continuing whirring of its mechanism
Vibrates my follicles and lends me in the
Direction of humanity, the peacock
Plume doused and preened into shape
I begin the trawl of closet colour
Of mood matching, of image portrayal

Set for the external clock to tick
I trust myself that wheels upon tarmac
Will hold me to my destination
Releasing me safe and sound to the
Jaws of business, its never ending
Narcissism purchasing my daily bread

Released from the bind **** of
Incongruence, sheltering under the
Safe shell of my emerging reality
It comforts my bones, grazing me with
Honesty and genuine intuition that
Hope isn’t baron or depleted
Grandeur awaits me and I am true
To my facing stare.....reflecting

Its the words that we hear, the life that we seek that makes us impeckable.
 
I listen deeply to your soothing voice, cherishing each word you tell me.
 
You used me.
Broke my heart.
Than dated my best friend.
 
You made us fall into a gab, made us hold on to the past for dear life. Things will never be the same all because of you.
 
She said she was sorry, but sorry doesn't mean anything when you can't accept it. I lost you. Than I lost her. The two most important people in my life.
 
I lost hope. I tried to converse with my peers but all I ended up doing was bashing her. The one you stole from me. They got tired and stopped trying to make me happy like I once was. Like I was when I was with you.
 
Each day, I would walk the halls to see her with you. My anger would boil in my vains, and all the memories between us would hit me like bullets. All the times you told me you loved me. All the times you held me close, when you never let me go. All the times you wishpered in my ear how much I changed you. All those times were gone, forgotten, like a gust of wind, you forgot about us. But I could never forget, even the countless times I tried its too hard. You left a whole in my heart, one that can never be perpared.
 
Than I see you. See you with her. I feel the pain once more. The urgeing sensation to graspe you from her grip and make you mine once more. To be able to call you mine once more.
 
But that can never happen. Or so I thought.
 
The days pass by that your with her. That you are caught up in every aspect of the one I used to call best friend. Now I only call her words that are beyond my reach, ones that I regret the moment they leave the tip of my lips. But I stay loyal, I never spread her secrets. Nor do I hope she will fail. Instead, I wish her luck with you; the guy who made my heart bleed with hate, you changed me. Some might say its for the better but all I can say is you changed me in a way that I can never be pepared again.
 
The sun sets, the moon rises and the stars are twinkling in the dark sky, when my phone rings. I see your name. The name I spit on with hate. I let it go to voicemail not wanting to hear your voice, scared that if I do the tears will start again. I wonder how that's possible, since I wasted all my tears on you but yet I'm proven wrong its possible.
 
Your voicemail is cut short. I hear your voice, its strange at first but then I fall deeply in love once more with the way you pronouce my name. Full with love and admiration. I'm falling for you once more. Falling slowly, and slowly. But when the end is near I think of you and her. The pair who made me suffer all those nights, the ones who made me cry myself to sleep.
 
Then I fall full speed into the whole, the rocks crashing on top of me. I scream, and scream untill I realize I am stuck. How much I try to push my way through there is no use.
I am stuck in your wrath forever.
5  years. 
 
5 long years filled with related concepts always bringing my thoughts back to you. 
 
I tried to forget. Belive me. But somehow its like you are carved into me like wood. I could never forget you. 
 
Its been 5 years since I last saw you. I wonder each morning when I wake up if you changed. Or if you still have that charming smile, and that flirty personallity But the thought that comes across me the most is if everyone falls for you as hard as I did or it was only me. 
 
You made my heart bleed that senoir year. You made me fill endless emotions towards you, and all I got in return was a wink and a "hey baby we didn't say we were exclusive" 
 
Those words burned through me. Leaving me with only hate to deal with. I made a vow with myself I would forget you. But it was impossible. Every where I turned I saw your flawless face within my reach. Your pulmp lips wishpering my name soothingly making me fall only deeper in love with the fake you. I made a character out of you. One which loved me with all its heart and cared for me endlessly. 
 
I tried to believe it was true. That there was such a thing but once again its only a fantasie. Soon I will be brought into reality to see you with her. She who shall not be named. 
 
Its the day that changed me once again. A day which you made me choke and feel the emotions you cast on me once again. My phone vibrates, for a moment I belive its a dream as your name blinks on the small screen. I feel the anticipation arising throughout me. Why would he be calling? I thought while picking on my nails. My hands shaky, I picked up the phone. And once again I fell beneath your spell. 
 
"Florence..." I heard your voice say. The world spinning around me I was almost lost in your voice. Snapping back into reality I prayed my voice wouldn't brake, that it would be stable but once again life is against me. 
 
I cleared my thraot, the curses I was getting ready to say formng in my mind. All the things I wanted to remind you of ready to come bursting out of me. But at that moment only one thing came out. One word. "Jake....." I heard myself say it. The way my voice said it, it was as there hadn't been 5 years between us. And we were just back on that night, in senior year, when you held me close and wishpered to me. 
 
I didn't realize it was quiet untill I heard ask me if I wanted to delete this message. I saw I had a miss call from you. You of all people. I was gettng ready to blast you but all I could think was if I should call you back. But then my phone rang, and I saw your name once more. 
 
One voicemail. That's all it took for me to rush to the phone and want to hear your voice again. I picked it up, feeling the nerves arising beneath me, the goosebumps starting to form on my arms. "Hello." I breathed into the reciever. 
 
"Florence?" I heard your voice ask. The same voice that I heard on the voicemail, the same voice that you had over me the years before. 
 
I tried to compose my voice, trying to make it like I forgot you. But in reality it was the exact oppisite. 
 
"Yeah, its me." I said in a strained voice. 
 
Suddenly slience struck upon us. None of us said a word. Just the dead selience between us. The tension high. 
 
But I didn't mind it. 
For what was there to say to the man who destroyed any ounce of belief I had in me? 
To the man who left me when everything was wrong. 
Now he calls me, I know what I must do. 
But in the end love does a funny thing to you; no matter how much you try to lock someone out, deep beneath the depths the right guy always finds the key. 
 
You foiund the key, opening the door slightly I heard your voice. Looking around me horror crept into my whole body, making me frozen in place. "......I was a **** and idiot...." You trailed off on the reciever. Barely listening to your words I was too caught up on the way you made me feell, the way you made everything appear perfect.
That night, the night you barged in and put me under your spell once more. Compelled by you I acted like your puppet, mimicking your every movement, following your every order. The distance between us fulled with tension. The anxiety of seeing your face again, uprising beneath me, while I took each step cautously to the Diner.
 
The Diner.
The place were everything had once been perfect between us. You would play with a stroke of my hair, I would giiggle in apparation as your gaze would be locked on mine.
Everything completely perfect.
 
Now, as I step foot into the diner, the goshtly images of us by our daily table, the one in the back corner. For a moment I could swear I saw us giggling and smiling at eachother. But as I look back the figures are gone and all that's there is an empty chair.
 
I walk in, immidently I am greeted by a middle aged waitress. Awe shown on her wrinkled face. "You here again?" She squels in delight. I looked at her puzzled.
 
"Your a legend here." She said, her eyes gleaming. "You don't remember I had been your waitress everyday when you guys would come. Your love so pure and magical it made me believe."
 
Suddenly the images were flooding back into my head. The ones of the giddy waitress we used to make fun of. The one we thought had a crush on you. We had laughed it off, you would remind me how I was your only one. But now it all fit into place. She hadn't been watching you, she had been watching us., mesmerized by our love that's what she had been doing.
If only she knew.
If only she knew that our love had failed, that you had cheated.
 
Our love had once been a blossoming flower, now all it was was a distant memory.
 
A gust of wind pulled me out of my daze. I noticed the waitress had been stareing at me all along with questioning eyes. I knew I should have been nicer, more apealing but this went along with all of the things I wish I was.
 
The sound of an schreeching door being opended caught my senses, everything hapend so quickly. I saw his face. That face which had haunted me all these years. The one which appeared in my dreams, day after day, I would wake up sweating, screaming his name for help. The hysterical cry I wouild scream, but he would never come. Nor would he answer my calls.
 
The anger boiling up in me once more, I swiftly forgot the love I had felt for him earlier this day. I wanted to remind him of everything. All the hurt he caused me, the tears shed on his behalf. I hated him for everything.
For the way he made me blush when he would wink at me.
For the way he caused me to act in sivere ways.
And for the way he made me love him so deeply that I had to make myself angry at him.
 
You were a few feet away from me, enough for me to reach out my hand and touch you. Everything around us was silent. It seemed as though all eyes were on us. I could hear the distant sounds of a cricket and I was definite you could hear my loud breathing or the accleration of my beating heart. Pounding against my chest, it acclerated with each cautous step you took.
 
I could smel your chlonage, your famillar smell rininging up the senses which have been held hostage for so long. Your aroma taking up the air, ******* out all the oxygen making it hard for me to breathe. Taking deep breathes, I couldn't help but feel compelled for a moment. I would have done anything you wished.
 
The awkwardness hit upon us. All we did was stare at eachother. Unable to speak I was hoping you would start. My mind blank, full-speed I tried to skim my brain for a word, anythjing. Everything seemed forgien to me. I felt useless. Parralyzed.
But I couldn't help but realize you were stareing at me with the same baffled expression as I was to you.
 
A word escaped your mouth. Your voice sounding like bells, having a musical ring to it. It caught me off gaurd, causing my heart to skip a beat. Just like the old days.
 
Looking around me I noticed the cracked wholes in the wooden walls, the hardwood floor beneath us, dusty with names carved into it. While you stared at me waiting for a response, my eyes skimmed over the floor beneath us, desperatly searching for it. That one thing that would remind me of what you did. So that I wouldn't fall for you once more.
There it was::
'Jake&Florence-F;&A.;' But starein
g at it closely, I noticed the one thjing I had been looking for. The word 'Florence' had been crossed out and replaced with 'Nicole'.
 
My best friend which you stole for me.
Bringing my attention back up to you I fought back the tears which had been trying to force there way out.
 
"Save it." I spat, not before letting the heel of my shoe dig into the wood earasing our names from the hardwood floor. Forever.

Back when I was about ten or eleven, the only friend I had was the most beautiful girl I knew. Her name was Jessica and her and I did everything together. In school we were inseparable, always chit-chatting before, during and after classes. So much so that teachers bestowed upon us the annoying, yet endearing, encompassing nickname of "Jackica" - a combination of our names; Jack and Jessica. I was so thankful for her companionship, and thinking back it might have been a pretty uneven relationship, emotionally. I was an overweight and awkward Harry Potter fanboy and she was a cute little auburn-haired thing who could've won any Miss America Junior competition in the world, as far as I was concerned. She had the most piercing powder blue eyes. The kind that made my skin tingle and mouth curl up into a stupid smile at any given moment. I felt like she saw me, like she really saw ME. Not the blubbery flesh that coated my muscle and bones but what I was made of, the real me. And I loved her for that. Along with Jessica's physical blessings, she was also given an insatiable appetite for adventure. She loved to go to the park at night, after the gates were locked and when everything was drenched in darkness. We'd hop the five foot chain-link fence and roam around the grounds. We'd go the water at the edge of the park and sit on the rocks, look up at the stars and take turns telling stories to each other with intent to scare the **** out of the other one. One humid night in mid-June, Jessica told a story that succeeded in making my skin-crawl. She always told decent scary stories, she was gifted in the art of fabricating tales of fright right on the spot, but this story really got to my core for some reason. I just felt uneasy as the words spilled from her mouth to my ears and with each sentence my muscles tightened and strained just from the mere tone of her voice as she told the story. She sounded serious, and she rarely did, even when telling these stories, but with this particular one it sounded like she really believed what she was saying was cold, hard truth. What she said was that she heard a story that her older brother's girlfriend had told her. It was about a house on the outskirts of town, placed just a few hundred yards from the mouth of the woods that lined our little suburban utopia. She went on to say that in the house was nothing all that scary. She said it was an old house, a very old house, as it was a log cabin that was built in the 1700s, when the town was first being settled. Supposedly, everything in the house was just as it was back then, little kerosene lamps sitting on home-mad oak tables. The maple-wood floors would moan and creak at the slightest hint of any weight being put on them. And then she said that no one had lived in the house since the man who built it died, around 1785. Needless to say, Jessica wrapped up the story by proclaiming that we had to find the house. And we had to go inside and see for ourselves what was so creepy about it. Being the scared, chubby little wimp that I was, I immediately rejected the idea. There was no way I was going to try to find a place that would only succeed in making me **** my pants in front of a girl, especially the one whom I'd placed the delusional label of "future girlfriend" on. But, as I subconsciously expected, Jessica talked me into it with just a few graceful words: "I'll kiss you if you come with me." The very next Saturday night, Jessica and I put on some dark jeans and t-shirts and took the bus all the way to the last stop, the edge of town. We hopped off and right in front of the stop the woods were already waiting, I took a deep breath as Jessica's eyes lit up. She took my hand and pulled me as she ran, me clumsily waddling along behind her all the way to a little dirt pathway that paved the only marked entrance we could see. She asked me if I was ready and I shrugged, saying something like "I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be." And so we started down the path. As the tall trees swayed in the wind, I dragged my feet with Jessica always about five feet ahead of me, as eager as ever. We walked for probably ten or twenty minutes before the foot of the cabin was before us. At first sight, it was a very old structure. I'd never seen anything like it outside of paintings in my history textbook and this Abe Lincoln documentary I saw on PBS. I never knew houses like that stood the test of time. But there it was before me, two stories high with wooden shutters clad in severely chipped paint and a big oak door that looked stronger than any door I'd ever seen. Jessica took my hand again, smiled enchantingly and rushed me forward. Once at the door, I was speechless. It didn't look as old as the rest of the house and whoever made it obviously meant for it to last a very long time, taking extreme care in carving it out impeccably and sanding it until it shined with a professional touch. Without a word, Jessica rapped on the door. Three hard times, and when no one answered after thirty seconds, she rapped again, and again. She shrugged and turned to me, asked if we should just go in. I said no and she frowned. "There's no way we came this far just to go back home with nothing," and then she wrapped her hand around the rusted doorknob and turned. The door opened with no hesitation as she pushed it all the way in. She stepped inside, and I followed. The first thing I noticed inside the cabin was the creaking floors. They creaked louder and longer with each step, affirming that part of the story, making my blood run cold. We looked around, going from room to room with wide eyes. We were amazed that we made it, that we got inside and now we were actually investigating a place that no one else supposedly had gone before. Truth be told, though, it was nothing special. There wasn't much at all to see, save for a few tables, the creaking floors and some very old paintings on the wall. We were just leaving when we noticed something on a table nearest the big oak door. It was a metal box with a small lock fastened to the front of it. "We have to open it," Jessica proclaimed after a second of curious inspection. "There's no way were going to find the key," I told her. "So we'll break the lock, Jack. Duh," she replied in her sassiest tone. I just shook my head as she grabbed the box and began to furiously slam it in the wooden table. The sound echoed through the house, exacerbating it and making me shiver from head to toe. "I don't know if you should keep-" but my sentence was cut off my the lock flying off the box and clinking onto the floor below. Jessica smiled again, very pleased with herself and looked to me. "Wonder what's inside...," She said, lifting the top half of the box open. After an initial and cough-inducing puff of thick dust subsided, the contents of the box were revealed. It was a letter, written on old-school parchment in heavy ink. In neatly laid Victorian script, the likes of which I had never seen so simultaneously neat and scattered, like it was written in a hurry or during a time of distress, was a love letter. Well, a kind of love letter. It was addressed to a woman named Tania and it was signed by a William. It told the story of how William had loved Tania since they were children, and Tania was now to be married to a Pastor named Hensley. William told Tania how he couldn't bear the thought of her ever being with anyone else and that the fact that she could never truly be his was killing him. Literally. He ended the note by confessing his plan to **** himself. I took a step back, but Jessica just stood at the table with her eyes glued to the crumbling parchment in her hands. "I'm leaving," I said after a few moments, mulling over the sorrow that this poor man must've felt. I headed out the door, Jessica following. The walk back through the woods to the bus stop I couldn't get this feeling of dread from subsiding. It seemed like I felt what William felt, but not in a sympathetic sort of way. It felt like I was William and the pain he felt was actually my pain. And then I noticed that, rolled up tightly in her fist, Jessica had taken the letter with her. "Why'd you take that," I said, sounding thoroughly upset. "That's not yours to take, go bring it back!" "No way. There was no way I was going there and coming back with nothing to show for it," she said, gripping the letter tightly, her knuckles almost whitening. I knew how stubborn Jessica could be and I knew whatever I said probably wouldn't even phase her in the slightest so I did what I did best and just shrugged it off. I found myself wishing I could shrug off the terrible feeling the letter put deep inside me just as easily as I could Jessica's stubbornness. Over time, Jessica and I lost touch, as kids of that age often do. I grew up, lost weight and opened up, making more friends and acquaintances, no longer hanging onto the thought of Jessica being my only love. I didn't talk to Jessica all that much. Just once in a while we'd meet up and have a chat over some coffee or pizza. We had both changed and morphed into young adults with different agendas and dreams and I had no problem with that. But on one such meeting, Jessica began to worry me. She said that every now and then she'd open her desk drawer and take the piece of parchment out and read it. Over and over again. And lately, she had been opening the drawer more and more, she said that she felt drawn to it. Like something about it made her feel this deep-seated dread that no horror movie or scary story had ever made her feel. She said that she felt like the letter was beginning to take a toll on her. And, by the look of her, it didn't seem like she was lying or kidding around like she always used to love to do. She had dark circles underneath her once striking eyes, which were now darker and had taken on an odd and ominous color. I was scared for her. And I told her so but she hugged me and assured me she was alright. I wanted to believe her, and I tried to, hugging her back and telling her I'd talk to her soon. But when she turned her back I knew something was very wrong. I'm writing this now because a few weeks ago Jessica's mom gave me a call. When her number came up on my cell phone, I think I knew, deep down, e actor why I was getting this call but I pushed the thought away and said hello. Jessica's mother called to tell me that a few days before Jessica had gone missing. The only indication to her whereabouts was a note she left with the words "cabin at the edge of town", and below that, instructions on how to get there. Her mother said she took the note and hopped in her car immediately, and made it to the cabin. She said she was breathless by the time she got to the cabin but forged on and barged inside and looked around. She said she found nothing and was about to leave when she noticed a small door behind the big oak door she had swung open to get inside. She opened the little door to find a stairwell. She climbed it, calling Jessica's name all the way, sobbing and wiping tears from her eyes. At the top of the stairs was the attic. And she said she almost died herself when she saw Jessica. She was hanging from a wooden rafter on the ceiling. And next to her was a severely decayed skeleton, dangling from a rope only a few inches away.u

On a summer morning,
Monkey had awoken early,
His eyes all sleepy,
And his hair wildly curly.
Swoosh,
He opened the door,
He had to use his mouth,
Because his tail was way too sore.
  Slam,
Monkey shut the door behind him,
His friend Panda,
Was called hungry, hungry Jim.
Monkey was off to work,
His tail dragging on the floor,
He was sure to be back in time,
To feed his family of four.
Although monkey was guilty,
He missed work twice,
Monkey was confidently sure,
His boss would be all nice.
Monkey had walked to the glass,
It said no dogs allowed,
For sure he was a monkey,
He walked in and proudly bowed.
His boss said he had to leave,
For he was not a monkey,
But monkey had explained,
He was very chunky.
The boss escorted his out,
Angry as could be,
For sure he was a monkey,
Can’t his work boss see?
He decided to go food shopping,
At the nearest grocery store,
He wanted to get home quickly,
So his family wouldn’t be that poor.
Monkey walked to the grocery store,
His feet were aching,
It was 10 miles away,
This was a big risk that he was taking.
Monkey got there very fast,
Quick as in running,
It said only monkeys allowed,
Wow that sign was stunning!
Monkey had barged in,
All the monkeys were looking at him,
He was told to get out,
So then he visited his old friend,
Hungry, hungry Jim.
When monkey had arrived,
Jim had told him he was a dog,
So Monkey left ashamed,
In the new deep fog.
Monkey had decided to go home,
And Comfort his 3 young ones,
He’d see his wife,
Oh, he loved them all a ton.
Hungry, Hungry Jim smiled,
As if he was really, really bad,
He decided not to eat him today,
He saw him so sad.
Monkey’s house
Was just around the corner,
It was a pretty color white,
But most of the time,
There was not much light.
He had opened his house door,
So lonely and ashamed,
He was a monkey,
He had claimed.
Monkey flickered on the light,
Nobody was there,
His wife and kids left him a note,
“You are a dog, we could not bear”.
Monkey was so depressed now,
He walked to hungry, hungry Jim’s house
He had tiptoed in,
And was as quiet as a mouse.
Jim had caught him,
And asked why he was not home,
Monkey had explained,
His house is just a comb.
Monkey said his family had left him,
Because he was a dog,
They think I don’t belong,
And am just a plain old hog.
All of a sudden,
The panda ate him whole,
And the only thing that was left,
Was his sad little soul.

I watch Laura through our adjoining office window
and pray to any god that will listen that she won't pick up the receiver.

I hope my glare burns the cord that...
******.

  Good morning, Mr. Prater.  My names is Laura and I'm calling from Vector Supplies.
    How are you doing today?

Her screech of a voice causes the hair on my arms to stand up.
Her laugh should be one of the layers of hell.

  Hello?  Mr. Prater?

Another customer dropped the call.
If someone with that voice called my home I would demand the manager
and accuse the caller of huffing helium, trying to get high.

She's the worst salesperson in this office.
Frankly, no one is great here.
At least we're better than the northern branch.

The boss, Mr. Leckman, opens the door and slithers into her office.

  Laura, I saw that another customer hung up.

  I'm sorry, Mr. Leckman.  I promise I'm trying.

  Try being more perky like I know you can.

Oh ****.  Don't encourage her you *****.

  And Laura, you can call me Ted, remember?

  Yes, Mr. Leckman.  I mean Ted.

Her giggle almost broke the glass of our window,
and if it had, I would have slit my wrists with the shards.
No hesitation.

I'm still watching the horror show,
and that's when I saw it:

He winked.

That *****.  I knew she was ******* him.
That's the only reason why she's still here.

Sadly, I was interrupted mid-strangle fantasy when Mr. Leckman,
or Ted, barged in.

  Ms. Dunn, get back to work.

  Sorry, Ted--uh, Mr. Leckman.

He had shut the door before I could correct myself.
Great.  I'm sure I'll get fired by the end of this week.
I need this ****-up of a job.  
It's one of the few places that doesn't make you
**** in a cup before you sell your soul.

Maybe I should bend over more often.

When the moonlight
lowers
i see in the night
a tearful ghostly light
don't know where it came from
can't even get a whiff
but i know
the petunia is meditating
unperturbed
can't really read her heart
can't tell how strong
she actually is
though the frost and dew
have barged in
the angle of the fallen fence
is expanding
but this i know
when the morning comes
she'll be awake
she'll be something different
i know
it must be the sunrise
that is able to mulch and sprout
the most captivating smile.

You think you're a badass?
Shout at us all for no reason?
Blame me for your problems like I give a ****?
Take it out on my family and expect US to be sorry?
Well *******, you and your weird *** hair do.
I never had a beef with you
I didn't even know you!
You believe what others say about me
Well come at me now what do you see?
Am I all that they said I was cracked up to be?
Get the ******* message, I don't mess around, you hear me?
Or do I have to bash your brains into the concrete?
Would that be enough to get the message across?
If I blew out your kneecaps out would I feel sorry for your loss?
Hell ******* no, I'd blow your **** legs off!
Wait, ***** that I,d take a handsaw and cut em off!
Break every single bone in your ******* hands
Smash em with a hammer without a second glance
call 911 now that you can't touch a **** phone!
how would you like it if I barged in your home?
Sayin I'm all that and the president too
Yell at your family and blame you too?
Like your haircut? Let's see it all over my wall!
Hold the phone ******* let's give your insides a house call!
Oops, was that your gut, let me rip it open for you
You won't need it after I get done with you.
*******, you thought that this would go down smooth?
**** that, drink some barbed wire too!
Let me tell you this just one last time
Make my girl cry again and I'll make you wish I'd killed you..

You barged right in with not a care in the world
Of how deeply I'd fall and hit the ground
I knew I'd fell, for I hurt inside
But I could still be falling, there's no end in sight
Like Alice in a wonderland nothing seems quite right
Still I drink your potion readily and prepare to hold on tight
I catch you in my dream hoping you'll stay the entire night
My subconscious has a knowing, I'll be alone by morning light
Every time I get back up and dust myself down
You just steamroll right back through me, knocking me out
My palms left sweaty my mouth left dry
As I wonder if my feelings can lie
For here things aren't what they always appear
The pain of unknowing is my only fear
So, for now, your seas have calmed
And your storm has settled down
Left me cold and windswept
With droplets on my brow
I'll do what I must to do for now
For when night time falls again
I'll be back in my beautiful nightmare
Where you think of me now and then

It kills me to think of your innocence
In how you loved everything
In your belief that everyone was good
Then I barged into your life
Ruined you in ways unimaginable
I swear I loved you but I couldn't show it
I tried to tell you I was broken
But this pride wouldn't allow me

I can't apologize and I can't console you
I restrain myself from trying to see you
You'll move on and everything will be okay
The memory of me will be nothing more
Then a blemish on your perfect skin
My perfume will no longer intoxicate you
It'll blend with your scent and attract everyone
You'll find someone deserving of your love

I will cover every part of my body in shame
Hiding the scars left by your loving touch
Strands of my hair that twirled on your finger
Grey every day losing their pigment
I can smell you everywhere I go
Like a stain that set and cannot be removed
Your whispers of promises and happiness
Are now haunting voices driving me insane

I'll continue to be made of rotting material
With a memory of love I never deserved
You'll be this glorious human being
Who realized never to settle for the worst

The castle went into chaos
The queen ran amok in the chamber
A coronation day parade
and she had just lost her tiara
All the maids were ordered to search
on the bed, under the silky bed sheet,
in the closet, everywhere....
but failed to locate the missing tiara..
oh where did it go?
this priceless tiara?
Running late... for the parade
The King barged in with the wizard...
This time to locate the status of the tiara
A cast of a spell that worked
The work of evil was succesful!
The magic ball in the wizard's hand
a face of a wicked witch who cunningly
disguised as a raven  who came by
at the queen's chamber that morning...
and it flew away.. away...
with the precious 12 carat diamond coated tiara
just when everybody was busy tightening
the queen's corset ,
the raven witch snatched an advantage
Poor Queen ....
incomplete without her tiara
but the parade went on....

He’ll always

Know the shift

It isn’t always the same

The best one can do: I’m sorry

Separate yesterday from tomorrow

A difficult task — he never quite understood

Why exactly that newness happened

Why the cold barged and blew

Why it bothered you

Why it can’t go

I stood there patiently,  
To see the idol in red
Along with me waited a thousand
Until their feet bled…
Wishes and dreams they never have an end,
To get one granted I waited there myself.

Folks from everywhere came to see,
The deity, that blesses selflessly.
Adults, children, infants and old
Delayed my visit to the divine soul.

Among this crowd, a voice I heard.
Sweet and melodious like the cuckoo bird.
I tried to get a glimpse, of that sound
When what I saw got me astound.

An angel in pink, with eyes so brown.
Hair like midnight and face serene
Giggling and laughing she stood with her mom,
Playing with her shadow, she moved round and round.

Her innocence so delicate, just like snow.
Her smile, so cheerful she would make a dreamboat.
Anyone who seemed erupt and raged,
Would get a glance and feel calm like a sage.
.
Like the scales of a rattle snake we lined.
Slowly yet steadily towards the sacred shrine
Long and restless, like the wind we moved.
The doll came closer to where I stood.

Infants were crying and the old got tired.
Mothers were trying their best to keep calm
We were in a temple, I wondered why the alarm?
Men perspired and their phones kept ringing
Impatient they became as the wind stopped ruffling.

All this happened around that princess
She was still calm and smiling instead.
She looked around to see other kids cry
Then she saw me and waved hi.

I wanted to carry her; that little child
Her face was imprinted on my mind,
I was sure she would be lighter than air,
I admired her for the way she stared.


Wonder if she knew where she was,
Wonder where she got her patience from
Wonder when my time would come
When suddenly I realized the temple bells rung.

The queue moved faster as people barged in
The crowd got disorganized and broke the line
I pushed too and stood on my toes
With my hands joined, and my neck stretched
I tried hard to see; the divinity.

Just then next to me I felt
Something; a gentle touch I guess
I turned to see who it was
To my enchantment, there she was…

That darling stood just beside me
Carried by her mother facing the lord.
I forgot for that moment where I was
For next to me was the angel from above.

Her sparkling brown eyes kept me stunned
Her exquisite smile, oh lord I wish I was a guy!
He face so beautifully crafted not a single flaw…
She was best work of the heavens that I ever saw.

I touched her tiny hands so pink.
She smiled; I tried to get her to speak
Just when, her mother turned to me and said
“My baby; she is unsounded from birth.”

Startled I stared at that mother’s face
I could see droplets flood her almond eyes
“I heard her voice so sweet just now” (I mumbled)
“She only, just makes noise” (and passed by…)
I leered again at that child
Wondered; how could the lord be so unkind…?

Just then it struck me why I was there
I ogled again at the idol in red
With so many questions that ran in my head.
I realized then my wish was lame.
I shut my eyes and prayed with faith,

“Dear lord; take away this cruel bane
And give her a life that she would want to live,
again… and again… “

she shuffled aboard
on the tail of rush-hour,
at bowling green,
brooklyn-bound,
70 unwashed scents in tow,
and a purple bergdorf-goodman shopping bag
stuffed with stains and soiled rags,
a crumpled ny post
and a white plastic bag,
the focus of her bare hands
as she sat down;

hands wrinkled and worn
but tough
like a boxer's;

silver strands of knotted hair,
fell over her face
etched in age and acrimony,
as she  rummaged through the bag;

right eye closed,
feigning sleep,
I peaked over the aisle
through the left;

she untied the white plastic bag
unveiling dinner
in a styrofoam take-out container:

rice, beans and chunks of meat
smothered in red gravy;
a 5-dollar special no doubt,
stuffed into her mouth
with  a black plastic spoon;
slurp....slurp....slurp

burp....lick..burp

she looked up,
flaunting a toothless smile of extreme delight

"SAY YOU LOVE ME!
SAY YOU LOVE ME!"
she screamed
to no one,
and everyone...

then barged through the door
at franklin,
scents, stains, rags et al,
tossing spoon and styrofoam
onto the
floor...

but for a few shaking heads
and wry smiles,
most were unmoved,
and glued to digital magnets;

she was just another
nut-of-the-day
on the ny subway...

~ Pablo (#fcbb)
10/21/2013

Blinded was she; the young girl in the corner,
Quivering with fear and trauma.
There was gunfire, shouts and laughter,
whilst she hid in the corner,
Hoping to blend in the scene.

They opened the front door,
and her heart sank to the floor,
When she heard the orders,
And they noisily raided her scene.

There were only two storeys,
Made of cardboard and metal.
She head time for one last tear;
one last prayer
before the men barged into her room
and dragged her out of the house kicking and screaming
and shouted praise at each other, like she was some sort of trophy.

She took one last glance at her home
In the Congo: the **** capital.
She wished she had died in the explosion, like her family.
She let out one last scream of pain before she was hit across the head
With the barrel of a gun.

And that was the end of Rosa.

I lay awake on top my bed,
My eyes dilated and bloodshot red,
But Yet i still wanted more,
Until my mom barged through the door.

I think of all the consequences ahead
As i shove my stuff beneath the bed
Only to realize that i've been caught
I stared a moment and then i thought

Of all the times that she said not
To do the things i knew was wrong
Yet i knew it was late i done it too long

I look my mother in the eyes
As she was staring at me with surprise
Atlast i knew i'd pay the price
For all i've done was never wise

Those pen marks
That keep you up
Through nights are just a cure
For when you thought
They knocked and opened
And barged in through your door.

You feel lofty and lost
And so obscure,
That it fills you up with beauty
You end up carving on your own.

You never ask
You never tell
You're a byline
Underneath, unread.

Maybe that's why
When they were scared
They called for help
Didn't hear you yelp
No, no, no.