I don't remember, any more,
The exact shape of your hands
As I held them in mine,
Caressed them,
Memorized the length of your fingers,
The depth of your calluses.

I don't remember, any more,
Exactly your height, how much
Taller than me
You were, where
My head rested on your chest
When you held me tightly close.

I don't remember, any more,
Your scent, when we lay together
Creating our own
Magic rhythm,
Matching our heartbeats as we
Touched the sky, together.

I don't remember, any more,
The sound of your voice, calling
My name as though
It were a song
Within itself, a precious treasure
You valued with all your being.

And I don't remember, any more,
The color of your eyes, the shape
Of your lips,
Only...
How your eyes crinkled at the corners
And your laugh, as you told me,

"I love you."

My feet are disgusting and horrendous
Crooked toes and calluses tell my stories
the pitter patter of them on the kitchen floor, trying to be quit and not wake up my parents in the mornings when I was little
Always wishing they were bigger so I could get new shoes

Years wearing on my feet, scars from running into sharp corners

And yet they still hold me up

smushing them into my skates, getting calluses every week for eight years

running from one place another and are learning why every type of ground feels like between my toes

From the frozen pavement to the searing sand they have been through the harshest conditions

And yet they will never fail me

I want you
I want someone to want me
but
you don't want me

please want me

don't!
I'm broken
you don't want a leaky faucet
that
self repairs
with duct tape and silly putty

I'll recite you the backs of cereal boxes
and
throw away the locks on the doors of our common places
I'll keep a smile on mine if your face feels too tired from the weight of what your mind is speaking out your eyes

Everything.
Every string
that hangs off of well worn sweaters
snags on finger nails and pealing calluses.

I'll draw the curtains
if
and ONLY
IF
you first admit that you
are
BEAUTIFUL.
and i know it.

Your doubt should drown.
We'll drink it down.
Sipping wine only to set the scene
because
WE
already ditched our inhibitions
and
we decided that what was best for each other was to feeds each other's needs with the other's body.

This letter.
This note.
To you.
The long lost women of my dreams
the shape shifting goddess
who floats freely through the open windows of my memories.
Will this be enough to summon spirits to lift me to your level without being beaten to life by a trigger happy judge's gavel?

I built my prison to your specifications.
The measurements may be off
but
the bed...
The bed is warm
and cozy.
And
it fills my heart to see your cheeks turn that rosy
rosy red
that same
rosy red
that fills my heart
and
flows through yours.
Kept inside
but
peaking out in moments of vulnerability.
Shed your false
heavy
layers of security
toss them in the water and...

Flush skin of lips and finger tips
other places where my mind can only wander
wondering where in the world we will
meet again.

It's half past ten or some other hour,
I don't know and you don't mind
because
we're alive!
and our heart beats will set the pace
keeping time in place.

THE STORM IS LOUD
MY VOICE
is softer
now...

Okay--

Alright--

*
I'll give you your space{













But
YOU
BETTER FLY.
And NO MATTER HOW HIGH
NOW IS YOUR CHANCE TO SHOW
to TRULY KNOW the color of your wings.

And
I'll continue singing
because
someone else may be listening.
And
although these tears won't quench my thirst
I'm learning more about myself through my time searching
through my ***** laundry:
Bags of rags
and forgotten junior high and high school notebooks.

Failed jokes took to heart
the stinging silence of laughter kept inside.

Broken funny bones
NUMBED by repetition [repetition]
DUMBED down
COMFORTABLE BEING SUBMISSIVE

Well, I'm not sorry
NOT SORRY
to tell you
this mouse
whose mouth you shut is now stirring

Stirring the ***
Kept at temperature
All the right spices and slices and dices to enlighten you as to what the taste of life is.
.............................................................­.................................................
Please sit, here is your chair.
I love what you've done with your hair!
let me know if you would like seconds
but
that depends on if you brought your appetite.
I know I'M Hungary [hungry]
but
I won't slurp my soup if it offends you.

We'll take it slow
because
I know that
I still don't know you that well yet.
And I think we both could cool it down on the unnecessary judgement.
I'd really like to know you well, so I won't try to sell you anything that you're not buying.
And call me out if you think I'm lying, but I promise to be as honest as you want.

But it's a two way street
and I know you're probably tired from running down it so long
in which case I would gladly rub your feet
or your shoulders if you'd like to be a bit more discrete.

However, it still may be too soon for that
in which case I'll take a couple steps back.

Do you like music?
How bout dancing?
It doesn't have to be romantic
I just enjoy the feeling when I'm moving to the rhythm in time with other bodies.

Does you mind maybe feel clearer now that your body's moving free
or
are you holding back because you falsely feel that you lack the ability to let the music move

Your soul's of you feet.

Let go
and hold on to me.
I won't let you fall unless you're ready
but I'll catch you
please don't worry.

We are free
here.

Let's just be
here.

Forget fear
and see where that takes us
in a year.

Or more
Or less
Or until you decide
that your dress
is not
the most comfortable thing
you
could be wearing...

I'm just glad we can share the same air
and not care that our hair's getting messy.

But...
This...
is the best I've felt.

In a loooong while...

Spinning out of control
Lying
With you here next to me.

Staring back at me in the mirror
Dry weary eyes and high cheek bones that pair with a long and narrow head that headbands always despise

Skin and bones
Blood and nerves
Blue eyes and glasses
Brown and curly hair

Scars tell the stories of her past
A rock when she was four
Her grandmother's iron when she was six
The rickety banister
The church pews
The sticky track she was fifteen
Anything can leave a scar
Just some scars are more noticeable than others

But it's not just the scars-it's the calluses and bruises
The birth marks and the wrinkles
Her nails that will never stop peeling
Her calluses from bearing the hopes and dreams upon her shoulders
Her ****** noses from a softball or the cold thin air

When she walks you can see her muscles tensing
You can see the bruises on her shins-they're glaring reminders of her past
Her poise is not perfect but neither is her teeth, hair, face, skin
Its her imperfections that make her perfect

Her way of making people smile when they're down
She always finds something to complain about even though she tries so hard not to
Interruption is part of her daily struggle-inside her brain and out
Her work ethic could be a little better but she scrapes by
Her brothers can tell you she despises being late and she can be a bit bossy
The worry lines on her forehead tell you that she's tossing a question around and around her head trying to look at it in all angles before making up her mind

She also cries and wants someone to tell her she is beautiful over and over again
But when she needs to hear it most, her love might forget to tell her

She is always cautious of this-she doesn't want to give herself to someone who will break all of her hopes and dreams inside her heart in one foul swoop
but she tends to daydream about her wedding

What will her dress look like
Who will her bridesmaids be
Who will  her husband be
Who will she dance with
She knows she can't dance and she wonders what her father daughter dance will be like
Will it be like when she was little dancing on his toes?

College is always on her mind and when it isn't, her parents are always reminding her
Ask your sister about the SAT
Memorize your vocab
Don't forget about the AP U.S. history exam
You have to start now
Make sure you read the history textbook
Work harder
You will have to study new material since your teachers aren't adequate
Your math grade needs to go up
Why aren't you studying?
Why didn't you start this over the weekend?
You need to work if you want to get into a good college

When I look at this girl in the mirror and I slowly realize that she is me
I raise my grubby hand to touch my smooth face to double check

Her throat is tight
She can't speak
She can't breathe

I want to tell her that it will be alright
Your friends will stick with you
You will get into your dream college and you will find a husband and live happily ever after

But I can't see the future

I stare at this girl who loves her friends
Who loves to run so fast she forgets to breathe
Who tries so hard to pay attention in class when all she wants to do is scribble poems in the margins of her notes
Who bites her lip when she does something wrong or gets nervous
Who blushes at all the memories when she's gone against the grian

And I want to tell her that she will turn out alright

But I can't

Tonight, once again,  
I'm left in the corner, broken.
Tonight is yet another night

But I refuse to leave.

Tonight is full of excuses.
Once again, my heart's so used to, it grew calluses.
Tonight is yet another night

But I refuse to leave.

I've loved many boys
With different colored eyes
But the way I remember them is
By the shape of their hands

The way their thumbs curved
Or how their palms felt against my own
The weight of them on my thighs
Or how they ran through my hair

The times they zipped up my dress
And settled on my shoulders
The moments when they grazed my own
As they handed me my keys

The motion of them as they spoke
And the motionless of them when they were silent
The smoothness of them in the beginning
And the calluses after time had passed

Sometimes, I forget the faces of these boys
Or the way their voice sounded over the phone
But I'll never forget the way it felt
With their hands intertwined in my own

Call for the aid of divinity,
Call upon the strength of my mother's chains,
Call to the resonance felt within my soul,
When my brother would whistle a tune of transcendence just outside my window.

Employ the courage of my calluses,
They were formed in the darkest of nights,
Ask for an ally in my altered form,
She's had to do this before, many times, never been a stranger to Indigo.

Raw energy.
Despite the stiffness in his fingers,
despite the way his fingertips harden with calluses,
the industrious pianist hammers out the same tune
that he played last night,
and the night before,
and the night before that,
and unnumbered evenings before that.
Each notes falls magically into place,
none out of tune or without purpose,
perfectly in time.
Raw diligence and focus flooding his brown eyes,
gazing deeply into the sheet music.
His yellow forehead wanted dabbing,
Steeped in his sweat.
A manifestation of his time spent in his trade.
The conscientiousness in his eyes.
The raw vitality of his weathered hands.
The way he fills each note with sentiment.
Perhaps those are what keep calling me near?

Persephone runs amok, her hair caught on tendrils of wind,
eyes lucid as emeralds; aware, alive.
Hope is sketched on her face as if drawn by whoever paints the sunset,
pulsating with the reflection of neon cities, rolling countryside,
the adrenaline-pumping moment before a rollercoaster’s descent.
She is high on happiness, running across her plane of existence
with only her converse sneakers and extraordinary ambitions.

Persephone knows she owes her unbridled youthfulness to Demeter.
Demeter, who is stern but unconditionally loving,
selfless, for when she hears her daughter’s plea for food she stops
her spoon midway through a bite.
When Persephone struggles with the perpetual torture of arithmetics,
Demeter’s sheer intelligence is astonishing, the iridescent reflection of
Persephone’s aspirations, for a problem to Demeter is merely
a hidden solution, a failure only a victory in waiting.

If only Demeter knew how her words are of the highest value,
her pleased smile the only affirmation to a job well done.
Her love cradled in the nook of Persephone memories,
every moment she is infinitely grateful to co-exist,
grateful for the Universe to award her the simple pleasure
of loving her parent with purity and stripped of conditions.

As Persephone runs, she glances back for a mere second,
in her smile is the mirror of her naivety,
she still believes that her Gods will save her from being a slave to
the inevitable corruption on Earth and Olympus,
for she is sure her untarnishable love for Demeter is her protector.

Yet, you know how the story goes.
In an instant, Persephone is falling into the Underworld, on the back of a beautiful monster into inescapable darkness.
But even then, she holds on to Demeter in thought and in prayer.
After adulthood, marriage, queenship, a childhood gone in a flash,
after her hands become worn with calluses, her face a series of rivers,
her mind expansive, her goals reached, Persephone knows she owes her unbridled youthfulness to the first person she ever loved.

I love you Dad, Happy Father’s Day.

I am the flightless pelican.
I’ve found myself with my mouth full,
my stomach full, and so much still on my plate.
Possessed by an inhuman hunger,
I will gorge upon pure potential.
I will yowl on and on, without sleep.
-
I have sand between my toes.
My shoes are glued to my feet.
Keep on running ‘til the calluses come.
There has to be a point where I stop to sweat,
and I’ll finally get my sigh of relief.
I have one ride left on my bus pass.
-
I have a tendency to ramble
and languish in my own stench.
People tend to forget this at first;
lured in by the false face of a genetic fluke.
They want to know the impression I left,
not the procrastinator; the cud-chewing goat.
-
I can’t sleep being held,
or if I feel someone’s breath in the still.
I start to feel the urge to burrow
into the quiet quilts; patchwork Promised Land.
I cater to the crowd that caters to themselves,
but I’m no Utilitarian. Fox and Lion.
-
I have cousins like brothers,
and I have brothers like strangers.
Stray cats with names
and a copy of The Mahabharata that I stash my money in.
I’m sitting on a sunny pier with my hook in the water;
avoiding conflict with no bait.  
-
Paper cuts from the gold leaf
on the edges of hymn book pages
with burgundy leather covers.
These guilty cuts, bleeding for what seems like hours,
while we steadily forget that anyone was singing.
Alone with our thoughts in the crowd.

To be a good writer or a poet
You have to be good at wearing shoes other than your size
Size 1, 2, 3, up to size 10
Even if it falls off your feet or too tight, you just have to try

Not only shoes, also all other kinds of footwear
From socks, sandals, flip flops, and slippers
High-heeled, boots, flippers and sneakers
Even barefooted, if there's nothing else to wear

Then, walk with it, run with it
Feel the calluses and feelings it brings
Up until its soles are wearing thin
Then, write the experience

Feet are the best place to look in a crowd
because,
even if they aren’t painted,
toenails offer a reflective surface
that reassures our presence,
no matter the floor we walk on.
I look down so often
that I forget I have that identical shell
on my fingers too.
They shine the sun in your eyes
when I blindly fix my hair behind my ear.
I know it disgusts you,
but I bite away,
in fact,
I chew that casing away
from my forgiving palms
and tuck them safely in my nail beds
where I drip bedtime stories from my gums
like a blanket fort of crimson comfort.
My stories get so crusted
on the nights when
you’re not here
that scar tissue
becomes less than something I blow my nose with.
I long for you
to tell me your stories
and let them faint into my wrists
so then I can carry your pulse
through my veins and feel alive again.
Let your heartbeat
guide my wandering hands
down your ventricles
and let me be the reason you stir at night.
Let me shake your bones
until the birds trapped in your rib cage
start singing again.
Let me be the cool tongue that
laps your broken heart back together.
Let me be something more than debris
hanging loosely from flesh,
but less than a bomb nestled
between the hollowness in your skull.
I hope you look down
and feel the weight of my lips from last night’s goodbye
pressed against your forehead
and realize
no matter how lost you get
in a swarm of shoes,
you’ll always have my bare feet
next to yours.

oh, sweet mistakes
how dear you are to me
i'd never know success without you

every skinned knee brought the eventual feeling of restoration
every heart ache whispers of future empowerment
and with every black eye - the promise of beauty returned
one must feel their weakest at some point
in order to ever fathom true strength

i've found myself in the heaps of rubble
left behind by what i'd never wanted to become

in ruin we are reborn

so let the levy break
let the water wash away what we've made
let the words evade me
let the type-writer's keys stick
let the ribbon jam
let all of my thought-out conceptions of what will happen
         never be
let it all go to ****
and get lost
and crumpled and bruised
let it all snowball out of my control
so that i can let go
and let it be how it's meant to be

let me rise from the ashes
dust off my wings
and cling to the hem line of the ever-twirling skirt of the sky

let me fly

it's been so long since i've tasted the freedom accompanied with the abandonment of the flight-plan
how i've missed the adventure of being lost
and the undeniable sense of self-worth acquired by finding yourself

i am new

Now and then again
I remember
when I was young
And thought
kindness and virtue
were the keys to happiness

But the harshness of the world
built the calluses
that keeps me alive
today
Refusing to accept
the goodness of the everyday man
And I wonder
have I really grown

It’s the kind of subtle trickle
That turns the asphalt into a glassy mirror
Ripples, ripples, ripples
Over it like a black pond
The silver lining of each little droplet
Streaking the sky with shades of gray
The streetlights cast an amber glow
Upon the shimmering mist
Hiss, hiss, hiss
Against your stinging flesh
Turn your face up towards the darkened sky
Let the rainfall and streetlights wash away the dust
The dust of the souls you carry on your lips and cheeks
Etched into your back and palms
Their burdens may cause you aches and pains
Let the rainfall and streetlights wash them away
Rainfall and streetlights
Rainfall and streetlights
An urban confessional
Where the sky leans in to listen
As every perfect drop of water hits your skin
It’s the sound of a cleansing
Only you can comprehend
And although the hope of purity may have been swept away
by the wind of unfixable mistakes
It’s still the belief alone in possible redemption
That keeps you from relenting to temptation
Drink up the tears of the sky, child
You are forgiven
You were always forgiven
After all
Paths were made to be strayed from
Straight lines are mundane, they all look the same
And never give a little boy glass when you haven’t taught him
how to grasp what’s right in front of him
When he drops it
It’s a dangerous job
Picking up the sharp shattered pieces
Do not make him do it all alone
Yes, inevitably you will cut yourself
On the broken shards
Crimson teardrops
If they tumble from you
Do not distrust your calluses
You made them through your own hard work and suffering
But they can only do so much for you
Remember your skin is a shell not impenetrable armor
So it’s best to avoid the things you know will cut unnecessarily deep
Bleeding is just another way your body assures you that your heart is still beating
Looking up from the gutter the universe awaits you child
Do you not realize what’s at your fingertips?
Infinity
So don’t give in just yet
Let the rainfall and streetlights heal you
Drip drop, drip drop
Let them bathe you in warmth
Radiating
Let the rainfall and streetlights take you away
To a better place
Wherever that may be

I am from jumping from school to school, making new friends and trying to keep old
From long car rides on deserted streets late at night, through rain and snow, words coming through the speakers nice and low
From a big family that always talks and chatters, laughing and making jokes that no one else can say

I am from state fairs that tempt you with sweet food and amazing memories forever in your thoughts
From camps where I learn to write like my brain is on fire and how I am ‘normal’ even with my condition
From shots of insulin, needles piercing my skin and  blood sugar tests ten times a day, wearing my calluses with pride

I am from colors filling the pages as my hands move quickly across the paper, making outlines and shadows, filling whats left with color
From writing like crazy, my mind never stopping with the ideas that flood it daily
From writers calluses and the pounding of keys as I try to get my ideas down before they leave

I am from not being athletic, but still being active, running and letting myself be free
From my feet hitting the ground, my legs aching as I just run my heart out
From crossing the finish line with a smile on my face and a finish in my heart

I am from church full of people who love me like their own and help me with my faith
From a community that helps me learn more and help move others
From a group of people that wants me to be my best and is a second family to me

I am from a family of many, who are all so diverse
From my parents who couldn’t be more different and my siblings who I couldn’t love more
From my nephew who already is just like his auntie Jess

I am from a group of close knit friends who are more like family
From friends who constantly tease me for the little things I do
From family who may not be related but still loves me the same

I am from relatives and friends who live close and far
From some I only talk to when I must, and others I talk to everyday
But, I am especially from people who love and care for me

Stripping You of Your Privilege
YOU!

Tall and lean and impossibly handsome
and Corporate

In your magnificent pinstriped business suit
and perfectly tied silk tie
and your hundred dollar haircut
your privileged male feet hidden
inside impeccably polished black
English dress shoes

Staring at me through your
designer sunglasses

Haughty, confident, insolent
Stepping out of your Porsche
before you enter your office building

So smooth, clean, assured and perfect
Maybe you are 35 years old, maybe 40
the world is yours


Transformation
I have news for you
The tables are turned

YOU have been the one in power.
The one in control.
So proud, so arrogant, so confident

Starting at me, a total stranger
Just part of your usual day
I am just an object to you
I am an OBJECT to you!

Your beautiful smooth shaven
face turns...
but wait...

Wait! No more

NO MORE!

The world has turned upside
down

Now YOU are the OBJECT

I have the POWER to make things happen

NOW LISTEN TO ME

You have a new future

LISTEN. OBEY
Quit your important executive job
Leave your successful corporate career

That's right – now
QUIT!
Call from your phone
Don't enter the
building
Tell them you’re quitting

You are stunned and repelled and horrified
You resist and argue
You refuse and try to leave
Your pride and anger rise
But there is no escaping your destiny

Your power is gone
You are helpless to resist

Forget your MBA
Forget you ever went to a university
Slide the business school ring off your
long finger

Give me the keys to that Porsche
And take your Rolex,
your gold wristwatch,
off your
wrist
You won't be needing a watch
I will tell you the time
We will sell your watch

You slide off your watch and surrender it

Get those fancy, expensive,
polished handmade shoes off
Your pampered, privileged male feet
Yes, your black dress socks too

YOU, barefoot on the sidewalk!

Leave the shoes right there on the
sidewalk, in front of your former
office building, shining in the sun.
Empty and crying for their former owner

Shocked, unable to resist,
you untie and remove your shoes,
peel off your long dress socks

Put your expensive socks inside the shoes
and drop the briefcase too

Now get back into the Porsche
you used to own
Yes, in your bare feet
Your smooth, clean size tens
No - NOT the driver's seat
Get in the passenger side
I am driving

I'm taking you to your own home
as my Trophy

How many times
have you
had a woman in your passenger seat?

You behind the wheel,
smiling your proud smile
your perfect white teeth gleaming

Straightening your necktie as
your bragged about your corporate successes
You and your car the proud conquerors
Your handmade black leather shoes pressing the pedal
of male power and privilege

Now you - just a passenger!
along for the ride in your own car
the rich carpet of your Porsche
under the smooth soles of your bare privileged feet

Now the plan!
We will marry
and you will clean and cook and look very beautiful

Now your LIFE LESSONS:
Dumb down your smug,
expensively high-class male executive
SPEECH.
More slang. Much less education in your voice
Don’t talk – just listen to ME

And you have to wipe off
That arrogant male grin
like you own the world.

Destroy that haughty attitude
of conquest - so much a part of you until today

Replace it with humble respect
And attitude of submission and obedience

Give me those sunglasses
You can't wear them anymore
Look at me
with submissive adoration in your clear, blue
eyes

No need to make decisions now
I will take care of that

I will take away your ambition
Your self-assertion
Your independent thinking

We'll take apart your self-confidence
and throw the pieces in the trash
All of your initiative and desire to succeed
will be replaced
by the desire to make me happy

I will change your prestigious upper class name
You will take MY last name now
Your identity will disappear
What is your first name? William?
You are Billy boy from now

Your male executive image and power clothes
No longer have
Any place
In your new existence

We'll pick up some nice tight cheap jeans and
some nice tight undershirts for your
new look - the one I choose
Show off your chest and your arms
Flip flops and work boots
and sweatshirts and flannel.
You will LOVE them!

I want you tougher, grizzled
Blue collarized
Working class male
You’re too clean, too smooth, too perfect
We’ll fix that...

And your clean-cut corporate haircut is
now forbidden
I hate it. Too perfect

Grow out your golden brown hair into
A scraggly ponytail
a beard too...
Put some dirt under those clean fingernails
Calluses on those smooth clean palms
An earring in your ear

And no more SUITS!
I hate suits
symbols of white male power and authority
and no more ties
those symbols of oppression
your neck and long male
throat will be open and exposed
for the world to see

No, that pinstriped suit you're wearing
that you had made for yourself in London
and the silk tie
and the starched white shirt
will all be sold to a second hand clothing shop

The monograms taken off your
cufflinks before they are sold
Your golf clubs – sold
Your tennis rackets and
sports equipment - sold

Your credit cards in my name
Your condo is now ours
Your Porsche is now mine
You will drive my beat-up old Ford

All of your fancy clothes will be sold off
That will be tomorrow



You're gonne be barefoot in my kitchen
You won't be needing shoes anymore
on your privileged, pampered feet


Now - your soles on your own kitchen floor
Making dinner for me

YOU!

Tall and lean and impossibly handsome
and Corporate

In your magnificent pinstriped business suit
and perfectly tied silk tie
and your hundred dollar haircut
your privileged male feet hidden
inside impeccably polished black
English dress shoes

Staring at me through your
designer sunglasses

Haughty, confident, insolent
Stepping out of your Porsche
before you enter your office building

So smooth, clean, assured and perfect
Maybe you are 35 years old, maybe 40
the world is yours


Transformation
I have news for you
The tables are turned

YOU have been the one in power.
The one in control.
So proud, so arrogant, so confident

Starting at me, a total stranger
Just part of your usual day
I am just an object to you
I am an OBJECT to you!

Your beautiful smooth shaven
face turns...
but wait...

Wait! No more

NO MORE!

The world has turned upside
down

Now YOU are the OBJECT

I have the POWER to make things happen

NOW LISTEN TO ME

You have a new future

LISTEN. OBEY
Quit your important executive job
Leave your successful corporate career

That's right – now
QUIT!
Call from your Iphone
Don't enter the
building
Tell them you’re quitting

You are stunned and repelled and horrified
You resist and argue
You refuse and try to leave
Your pride and anger rise
But there is no escaping your destiny

Your power is gone
You are helpless to resist

Forget your MBA
Forget you ever went to a university
Slide the business school ring off your
long male finger

Give me the keys to that Porsche
And take your Rolex,
your gold wristwatch,
off your
wrist
You won't be needing a watch
I will tell you the time
We will sell your watch

Get those fancy, expensive,
polished handmade shoes off
Your pampered, privileged male feet
Yes, your black dress socks too

YOU, barefoot on the sidewalk!

Leave the shoes right there on the
sidewalk, in front of your former
office building.
Empty and crying for their former owner
Put your expensive socks inside the shoes
and drop the briefcase too

Now get back into the Porsche
you used to own
Yes, in your bare feet
Your naked size tens
No - NOT the driver's seat
Get in the passenger side
I am driving

I'm taking you to your own home
as my Trophy

How many times
have you
had a woman in your passenger seat?
You behind the wheel,
smiling your proud smile
your perfect white teeth gleaming
Straightening your necktie as
your bragged about your corporate successes
You and your car the proud conquerors
Your handmade black leather shoes pressing the pedal
of male power and privilege

Now you - just a passenger!
along for the ride in your own car
the rich carpet of your Porsche
under the smooth soles of your naked privileged feet

We will marry
and you will clean and cook and look very beautiful

Now your LIFE LESSONS:
Dumb down your smug, expensively high-class male executive
SPEECH.
More slang. Much less education in your voice
Don’t talk – just listen to ME

And you have to wipe off
That arrogant male grin
like you own the world.

Destroy that haughty attitude
of conquest - so much a part of you until today

Replace it with humble respect
And attitude of submission and obedience

Give me those sunglasses
You can't wear them anymore
Look at me
with submissive adoration in your clear, blue
Male eyes

No need to make decisions now
I will take care of that

I will **** your ambition
Your self-assertion
Your independent thinking

We'll take apart your self-confidence
and throw the pieces in the trash
All of your initiative and desire to succeed
will be replaced
by the desire to make me happy

I will change your powerful upper class name
You will take MY last name now
Your identity will disappear
What is your first name? William?
You are Billy boy from now

Your male executive image and power clothes
No longer have
Any place
In your new existence
We'll pick up some nice tight cheap jeans and
some nice tight undershirts for your
new look - the one I choose

I want you tougher, grizzled
Blue collarized
Working class male
You’re too clean, too smooth, too perfect
We’ll fix that...

And your clean-cut corporate haircut is
now forbidden
I hate it. Too perfect

Grow out your golden brown hair into
A scraggly ponytail
a beard too...
Put some dirt under those clean fingernails
Calluses on those smooth clean palms
An earring in your male ear

And no more SUITS!
I hate suits
symbols of white male power and authority
and no more ties
******* symbols of oppression
your neck and long male
throat will be open and exposed
for the world to see

No, that pinstriped suit you're wearing
that you had made for yourself in London
and the silk tie
and the starched white shirt
will all be sold to a second hand clothing shop

The monograms taken off your
cufflinks before they are sold
Your golf clubs – sold
Your tennis rackets and
sports equipment - sold

Your credit cards in my name
Your condo is now ours
Your Porsche is now mine
You will drive my beat-up old Ford

All of your fancy clothes will be sold off
That will be tomorrow



You're gonne be barefoot in my kitchen
You won't be needing shoes anymore
on your privileged, pampered male feet

Outside two squirrels foraging
Inside one hundred and one keys tapping
Three buttons clicking and one wheel spinning
Eight hours a day sitting badly
In an ergonomic desk chair
Soft fingers tap on plastic and glass
Weak muscle memory of calluses and splinters
And sunburn blisters from another life
Outside the old prairie wind howls like a phantom
Lost in urban canyons buffets the panes
Drives the torrents of freezing rain
Hard droplets tap on metal and glass
While inside our high-rise terrariums we sit
Generating transient value that flits
Up into the clouds till whenever
You tap plastic to trade your invisible worth
For a hot meal in a disposable bowl
Ponder and sip in another life you could be
Spending all day in the freezing rain
Hunting squirrels for soup

I’ll conceal your shifting hands,
Palms pressed,
Calluses to torn cuticles,
All thumbs and knuckles and nails,
And I don’t know her, violet-scented creeping infestation
and
How you’ve worn me down, there’s a hole in my sleeve-
And I’ve let you chew on me, sweat on me, I’ve
I’ve kept you warm
And
You used me,
You used me to conceal
illicit activities,
hands in pockets, shrugging eyes off,
never been cigarettes in there, nope,

And you let her peel me off of you, the one with violet hands
that weren’t so gentle, but violent,
voracious,
tearing in at you,
as I watched from the floor
she scratched the skin that I kept safe and warm,
and
and
Why did you leave me crumpled on the floor and then
And then let her take me home, draped over her bony shoulders
to billow like a parachute,
before she squeezed me half to death that night in her sleep?

The last time we had *** it caused something of a
deforestation, I realized that I love men so much that I could not
possibly do their work for them. Double the amount of
calluses on my fingers and toes than there should have been:
two for every inch of hair cascading my back
when fifty-year olds would grab me and make an ocean of trees.
I cannot count how many times we have left someone
ourselves or others for ourselves, there is no difference because I
feel goodbyes in the same way that I do when I think about
missing my subway train or having hot tea
burn my esophagus on the way down. We leave people as often
as I fall in love with my thirty-six inches of hair cascading.  

Moments that did not matter, forgetting I was the one who
could have a second heartbeat in my belly
even stronger than the pulse felt in any man’s ****.

I do not want to remember you as the man who broke my heart
not long after breaking my *****, so I emptied everything
for you and pretended it was only the phone bill
I racked up that we had a problem with.
Every call amounted to a page worth of reasons why we did not
break up when maybe we should have, there were fifty
year olds making my hair cascade like rain down my back.
A precious later reminded me that I am a woman
and so I do not have to be empty:
as full as a god, there could be two lives inside of me from you.

YOU!

Tall and lean and impossibly handsome
and Corporate

In your magnificent pinstriped business suit
and perfectly tied silk tie
and your hundred dollar haircut
your privileged male feet hidden
inside impeccably polished black
English dress shoes

Staring at me through your
designer sunglasses

Haughty, confident, insolent
Stepping out of your Porsche
before you enter your office building

So smooth, clean, assured and perfect
Maybe you are 35 years old, maybe 40
the world is yours


Transformation
I have news for you
The tables are turned

YOU have been the one in power.
The one in control.
So proud, so arrogant, so confident

Starting at me, a total stranger
Just part of your usual day
I am just an object to you
I am an OBJECT to you!

Your beautiful smooth shaven
male face turns...
but wait...

Wait! No more

NO MORE!

The world has turned upside
down

Now YOU are the OBJECT

I have the POWER to make things happen

NOW LISTEN TO ME

You have a new future

LISTEN. OBEY
Quit your important executive job
Leave your successful corporate career

That's right – now
QUIT!
Call from your Iphone
Don't enter the
building
Tell them you’re quitting

You are stunned and repelled and horrified
You resist and argue
You refuse and try to leave
Your pride and anger rise
But there is no escaping your destiny

Your power is gone
You are helpless to resist

Forget your MBA
Forget you ever went to a university
Slide the business school ring off your
long male finger

Give me the keys to that Porsche
And take your Rolex,
your gold wristwatch,
off your
wrist
You won't be needing a watch
I will tell you the time
We will sell your watch

Get those fancy, expensive,
polished handmade shoes off
Your pampered, privileged male feet
Yes, your black dress socks too

YOU, barefoot on the sidewalk!

Leave the shoes right there on the
sidewalk, in front of your former
office building.
Empty and crying for their former owner
Put your expensive socks inside the shoes
and drop the briefcase too

Now get back into the Porsche
you used to own
Yes, in your bare feet
Your naked size tens
No - NOT the driver's seat
Get in the passenger side
I am driving

I'm taking you to your own home
as my Trophy

How many times
have you
had a woman in your passenger seat?
You behind the wheel,
smiling your proud smile
your perfect white teeth gleaming
Straightening your necktie as
your bragged about your corporate successes
You and your car the proud conquerors
Your handmade black leather shoes pressing the pedal
of male power and privilege

Now you - just a passenger!
along for the ride in your own car
the rich carpet of your Porsche
under the smooth soles of your naked privileged feet

We will marry
and you will clean and cook and look very beautiful

Now your LIFE LESSONS:
Dumb down your smug, expensively high-class male executive
SPEECH.
More slang. Much less education in your voice
Don’t talk – just listen to ME

And you have to wipe off
That arrogant male grin
like you own the world.

Destroy that haughty attitude
of conquest - so much a part of you until today

Replace it with humble respect
And attitude of submission and obedience

Give me those sunglasses
You can't wear them anymore
Look at me
with submissive adoration in your clear, blue
Male eyes

No need to make decisions now
I will take care of that

I will **** your ambition
Your self-assertion
Your independent thinking

We'll take apart your self-confidence
and throw the pieces in the trash
All of your initiative and desire to succeed
will be replaced
by the desire to make me happy

I will change your powerful upper class name
You will take MY last name now
Your identity will disappear
What is your first name? William?
You are Billy boy from now

Your male executive image and power clothes
No longer have
Any place
In your new existence
We'll pick up some nice tight cheap jeans and
some nice tight undershirts for your
new look - the one I choose

I want you tougher, grizzled
Blue collarized
Working class male
You’re too clean, too smooth, too perfect
We’ll fix that...

And your clean-cut corporate haircut is
now forbidden
I hate it. Too perfect

Grow out your golden brown hair into
A scraggly ponytail
a beard too...
Put some dirt under those clean fingernails
Calluses on those smooth clean palms
An earring in your male ear

And no more SUITS!
I hate suits
symbols of white male power and authority
and no more ties
******* symbols of oppression
your neck and long male
throat will be open and exposed
for the world to see

No, that pinstriped suit you're wearing
that you had made for yourself in London
and the silk tie
and the starched white shirt
will all be sold to a second hand clothing shop

The monograms taken off your
cufflinks before they are sold
Your golf clubs – sold
Your tennis rackets and
sports equipment - sold

Your credit cards in my name
Your condo is now ours
Your Porsche is now mine
You will drive my beat-up old Ford

All of your fancy clothes will be sold off
That will be tomorrow



You're gonne be barefoot in my kitchen
You won't be needing shoes anymore
on your privileged, pampered male feet

When I was a kid
I used to spend hours on the monkey bars
I would walk home with sore arms and a cheeky grin
My hands were built of thick calluses
Leaking crimson as they ripped open time and time again
I didn’t mind
As I got older
It got harder to hold myself up
I was too tall
Head peeking over the metal chains
The magic was lost
Looking back
It’s kinda funny that one of the best memories of my childhood was also the bloodiest.

With worthless words
In his throat
And on his tongue

He sits a thousand miles across
Through earth’s hard calluses atop bent-knuckle mountains
And soft, golden hair growing in the soil
Through lakes full with tears
And forests filled with hands and fingers...

He sits a hundred blinks of the sun
And watches drive-in theaters disappear
Along with the ferris wheels
Spinning into nothing

Dances going mute
Bodies moving soundlessly through the air
He watches lights go out in carnivals
And hands letting go

THE SUN BLINKS

With worthless words
In his throat
And on his tongue

He stands and shuffles
Through undefined shapes of colour
A brilliant array of blurred blues
And greens
And yellows
They move so

Fast

Through his eyes

THE SUN BLINKS

With worthless words
In his throat
And on his tongue

He sits
Through the drone of voices in his ears
And nods
To mask his heart
And smiles
To mask the obvious
Pull

On his soul
Dragging it down
Trying to keep it from being pulled
Out
Through the soles of his feet

A mask on his face
To hide the struggle
To keep it from
Slipping
Away

THE SUN BLINKS

With worthless words
In his throat
And on his tongue

He writes with his thumbs
Words he hopes
Can be felt
Like winds that whisper love
Through ears
And cold water
That reaches through
Skin and freezes bone

And the words return
Like rivers do
Sometimes
Missing
A few drops of water
Sometimes
A little less happy
And a little more

Tainted

With sad things
Like broke down carnivals
And quiet dances...

Ferris wheels that stop turning
And drive in theaters that stop playing movies

It becomes a little more polluted
With sad things
Like closed curtains over the sunset
Through the window
And tea that goes cold

A little more
And a little more
Until the words that return
Like rivers do
Are missing
More drops of water
And
They
Dry
Until
No
Water
Runs
Down
The
River

THE SUN BLINKS

With worthless words
In his throat
And on his tongue

He sits with lips closed
Under the mask of a smile
A mask of calmness over the worry
In his heart

Sadness masked by happiness
Tears masked by laughter
Fears masked by confidence


A mask
For every
Emotion
That his brain triggers



Except one



Because to him



No mask can cover


What she makes him feel



Such pure



Perfection




When she

Holds
His
Hand




THE SUN BLINKS

And no words come to his tongue
Or pass his lips

Silence, masked

Wait for the door by the pillar
because she’ll be back again,
with an arm around her neck
to keep her warm against cold
eyes looking down, from the surrounding guys from around the bar.
Every jackpot ever, was won in their hearts that night
in that shadow of time that they called light.
Single girls will always be watched,
and those girls with a man attached
will always seem unmatched in the eyes of the lonesome.

I waited by the door and joined in with her stride,
a pace set with vigour and pride.
Did I speak?
No, never spoke up, just let it carried on
until it lit and flared up.
When that match hit okra runway slip
everything comfortable flipped and switched
into a cushion of stone that now dismantles backs,
blisters fingers and causes calluses that stop and linger.

Hate myself?
Increasingly.
Personification was me, to her
and to me, she was just that.
I should really get in contact,
and apologise.

I don't deserve

to allow anyone else

to feel undeserving

of me

Forgot what I searched for to find heaven.
But I know that at the age of seven
I seized my mother’s phone and found a god.
He led me to an arresting world with strings.

Strings that swept your hair the way the wind does
when your ego would reach the sparkling skies.
They touched your heart no matter how heartless.

I refused to blink because if I did
I would miss a second of his gentle
fingers gliding across the maple fretboard.
And no sane person would want to miss that!

Strings danced back and forth as he played a chord.
Oh, his fingers grew sore, but calluses
helped desensitize them from aches and pain.

The instrument he mastered was waiting
to call him master cause’ guitars love how
he manipulates and makes them his slave.
Strings begged for his touch, for sounds they could make.

My eyes felt heavier than dense gym weights.
I mustn’t stop gazing if I want to
stay lost in heaven. So **** riveting!

“School is tomorrow.” “******, I forgot.”
“Give the phone back. Hmm, what are you watching?”
“Heaven.” “What did you say?” “I said heaven.”
Mom didn’t say anything afterward.

A few hours came, she asked for the phone.
I gave it to her, prepared my backpack.
Maybe in a different universe.
I would have proclaimed, “Don’t take the phone back.”

To be perfectly honest this was one of the more difficult poems to string together for the sheer fear of possibly jinxing it,
as there appears to be a pattern to every story involving a boy and me lately,
which begins with the same overrated butterflies in the stomach sensation followed by a poem,
sleepless nights, cigarettes, ***** and a tragic ending.
So having reached the poem stage my instincts and the part of my brain receptive to pain are already bracing themselves,
I can feel them clenching in my gut.  
As this three nights stand situation burns the lines between a *******, friendship with benefits and something to the extent of a budding romance,
my expectations are protesting against being so fiercely oppressed,
frankly they are getting out of control,
as the dislike of not wanting to be clingy, chivalry of not wanting to subdue to any labels nor the fear of yet another heartbreak itself,
are no longer sufficient to keep these rising hopes in place.
Ironically, when I think of you I think more of who I become when I'm with you, than actually you,
even though I do sincerely adore you. Very much.
I'm bemused by how comfortable I feel in my own skin,
naked and burnished, next to your warm, ivory touch.
Each time you trail your fingers down my body and take in a quick breath as if you were seeing me for the very first time,
I treasure the look in your eyes for later in the week when the going gets tough.
I idolize your rough, blistered, bleeding palms with all its calluses for they mirror my own much subtle bruises,
representing our shared interest, commitment, strength and transformation.
Your new found superpower to completely eradicate my necessity to socially smoke when socializing with you, speaks for itself really,
and we haven't even got to the laughter, the banter, the top notch sarcasm, the conversation, the warmest embrace,
breakfast ending in a ridiculously serious spectacle of coffee making,
which I thoroughly enjoy from the best seat in the kitchen wearing your shirt which fits me far more perfectly,
and the skip in my step as I head home.
So when the day comes for the revolution, of my expectations, overthrowing this rather tiresome governance of fear,
I just might pop the question, will you be my forever one night stand? ,
in the hope that you might just say yes...

I built a home for you, out of me,
when the bricks break
it is because I have been raided. The blue sky's
not even immune to cloudbursts
the humid air lifts
to resemble some form of heartbreak.
Call it
a mushroom cloud, I go off almost nuclear.

The truth loves me enough to reveal itself
the truth loves me
even when you do not.

I've decorated the staircase with it
and discovered rope-burn,
calluses like children wanting you to just watch
what they can do
watch a ceremony. What fathers create.  

I've padded its feet
with snow, the whole summer leaks with December
and my kneecaps are rotting wood.

Creaking
using garland as a noose
you know when I walk and when I sit, the truth
cannot stand for not knowing.

I've not let it lay down either,
this ****** affair. My
walls stay white and unheard of, untouched
yours are only
the cream of glue, I should have kept the doorway
shut and tied to you with a string.
Not even the truth can dissolve over a lie
(but I can, I can, I).

But
when God smells fear, he makes it happen
and God can be
a man, a woman, a lover.

Cusp

Once I wrote these words:

Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff of about your life
that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.
(http://hellopoetry.com/poem/now-you-are-ready-to-write/)

so here I am, hands on my chest,
so unready, incapable of writing,

the battle site changed,
sledding to the top of my head,
moved northwards, mush, mush.

just don't have what's required
to melt that mush open,
just don't have the anymore
to finish this Iditarod race
called my Idiot life.

nobody knows the silences
kept in my treasure box.
nobody knows the nail-beds
slept, bloodied, by this
mthrfking depression,
unexpectedly returned to sender,
unable now,
to write, free and clear.

suffused, this words reappears,
you don't get it, the twilight twinkies
below laughing, twinkling,
middle ******* me,
so not suffused,
nah nah nah nah
you don't got it,
you got nothing.

the words supply, torn and  tired
reappears, now escapee prisoners
before flatlining, crashing
as I am currently 20,000 feet over
somewhere above the Eastern Seaboard;

we may land smooth,
but not in any groove
that fits me anymore.

Here's the sorest, sorriest laugh,
what you are about to read
was eons ago born, and today
birthed.

Happy M.F'ing  Birthday #0
don't even, can't complain fresh,
reusing unused words that never got
devoured, so now, used up too,
like me.

cut by thicket's branches
(that in their defense, maim only to self-protect)
calluses of experience
not enough to survive
what is now needed,
new chapters required.

choruses of repetitive choirs fresh,
inspire but land on surfaces
heart-hardened by fear contagion.

who will know and
who will care and who
will make them all go away,
but me...

so touch my self,  
reminder to self is emailed,
beat the odds so man-many times,
one more time, what's the big deal?

fresh differences,
maybe,

words that are new
not in my vocabulary,
maybe.

Struggle, long lived,
is the status quo,
** **, don't you know,
nobody tole ya?

world's axis is tilted
you can fall off
a familiar horse,
get off course,
so east easy
a gravitational force so subtle,
clueless you're drowning
till the riptide
has liberated your
pockets possessions,
pathetic borrowings
of unoriginal thoughts
you thought you actually owned!
now you realize
new inspirational how to books
keep getting writ,
published for experienced suckers
like you.

so here at the pointed cusp
a crescent shaped tangent,
lines crossed, intersection of a curveball
turning inwards, retracing prior paths,
familiar but tho the forecasts predict
being on the cusp of something,
crystal ball reveals nothing at all.

I fold the little have learned
into a handkerchief
folded three times over,
tied cusp to cusp
with a trefoil knot,
which while
mathematically correct,  
is too easy as my hanky is almost empty
and hobo heart journey scary is thinking
done.

I wander into this dark, misTearYous room
—and there he was...and wow! What a Fig!

He with the long, lustRuse hair,
sitting at a corner table, nursing a cup of hot cocoa.
Dang. He has better hair than I do!

“I’m  a  gin at  Ion’s,” were his first words spoken.
“I’m  a  gin at  Ion’s.” And then sighlens.

I was trying to look through his lens, and figure out his sighs,
when he utters, “I can see you are number—“

“Huh? I am number what? I don’t see any lines here..."

“Ah, yes you are, as I was... NumBer as in more than numb.”

Epicfunny!

He definitely got me, he with the misTearYous eyes
so I sit down and ask him what he means
(but I refused to ask how he saw through my numbity)

“What do you mean that you are a gin? And where is Ion’s?”

“Exactly just that. I’m a gin at Ion’s. A **** t’Eve.”

He tells me that Ion’s is nowhere, everywhere and knowhere,
of how anyone who takes even a sip of that gin can hold on to it—
too much, so much so, as to lose that grip on ReAhhlity...

I ask him what he does there.
Seemingly one word, two meanings—
"aMuse," says he...

He reveals he is also part-tickles, part abs-tackles
then he also exhails at wind ‘o pains,
to fog or clear up views and relayshunships...
But oh! How at one point he felt tieurd, of how he had so many callUses—
numb, tired of how it reCurse, of always being called upon, of being used

Sighlens.

Been used So many times, he didn’t know who he was anymore...
a Duke at Ion’s,
      a con’s front at Ion’s,
an ex pecked at Ion’s,
    a lucid at Ion’s,
              a rebel at Ion’s...

Oddly enough, even if he has been ‘d sign at Ion’s,
he still felt blahtantly invisible,
even if at one point he wore only a V-bra at Ion’s!

He chalks everything up to exPeerience, and has learned from it.
And that's why he's also known as a sensei at Ion’s (his personal favorite)

He says even if he can go beyond infinity, he—
He stops (ah gain!) and yes, there it sneaked in...Sighlens.

Telling me through the void, through his sighs, through his lens
To close my eyes, and figYour out myself.

And then I do...

ReAhhlieZing how much I could relate,
how I have been in DenyAll of my possiBElities.
It is all a matter of perSpeck'tEve, of looking at each tiny speck of life,
of creating something from each of it, entire universes even—
boundless

How odd that I myself felt like I'm a gin at Ion's...
Scrunchscrunch...Imaginations.
Addictive, yes, so I best be careful with where I take it.

I oh!pen my eyes and the fig meant to show me ReAhhlity had gone...

I see you from across the room.
It’s impossible not to,
I have to look through you,
To see out the window
You don’t look as good tonight,
As his words might lead us to believe.
Good enough for him.
Good enough to write about.

He salivates over you,
Like I might over a steak.
Like you are over the poem he reads.

I may have lost you over this one.
Because he is tender.
Because he wrote one good poem.
Because he might kiss the same way he *****.
**** the same way he would,

Put his thinly pursed lips,
On the curve of your neck.
But he wouldn’t appreciate your neck.
Like
I do.

He might not be spitty
Chapped from years of rejection.
I stare at your neck
I’m sorry if I stare.
I need to see out the window,
During this three hour class,
To know the world is still there.

He doesn’t know your feet.
And if he did *******,
With your socks on or off.
He never felt the abrasion,
Of your well-earned calluses.
You always feel the scruff of my chin,
On your neck.
The neck he will never know.

**** me on my bed.
Bleed on my hard-wood floor.
Let’s get out of this place,
This three-room mansion.
We’re either better than this, or,
I am delusional.

Hello, little god,
cornered in this world of insignificance;
between sips of too-cold raspberry tea
create your own brand of madness
and label it "art."

From the blueberry stool
that is your throne, conduct
symphonies of beluga whales and
daisy chains molded together
to craft another colorful beginning.

Papercuts and calluses
are your battle wounds;
a diligent ballpoint pen
is the dog that marks its territory.

But then--

White knuckles
crumple mistakes,
transforming them into carpet-coating origami.
Your fingers keep the beat
that defines disincentive:
bmm, bmm, bmm.

Possessed
by antagonistic demons, tug
at the noose that is
a favorite paisley tie
and admit defeat.

Take another bite of your
overpriced Reuben sandwich.

They walked in together with flushed faces and cold ears, after walking for what seemed like minutes in the coniferous forest surrounding the cedar cabin. Those minutes were actually hours, but when they were out here time did a funny thing and sometimes stopped all together. He hung their coats in the closet as she stripped herself of boots and socks, with bare cold feet she walked across the patterned carpet feeling its fibres between her toes. She  perched herself on the couch in her favourite reading spot. He then too assumed his position on the couch allowing a space inside his outreached arm to be filled by her appreciative body. As she blankly gazed at the green life out the window, he gazed at her. Memorizing the freckles on the bridge of her nose and the way she puckered her lips without noticing. Absorbing all of her for a keepsake in case she decided to disappear as fast as she had come. This girl, he thought, is the most beautiful combination of genes and timing I have encountered in my life. But he didn’t mean physically, he meant her laugh and her stubbornness and how she believed she was spontaneous but every moment of her life was  planned. It scared him how much and how detailed he saw his future, and how she was undoubtedly in it as far as he was concerned. Sometimes he wished he didn’t feel so much for her, for them. He had been hurt before and he grew accustomed to the calluses around his heart.

She breathed it all in, slowly but thoroughly. She breathed in the warmth of the burning furnace, the smell of wood that was still alive. She breathed in his sent of musk, soap, and mint. She breathed in his delicious smell of love, his pheromones. This place was exactly what they needed, some time in a surreal place to remember each other and how well they used to fit. How well they do fit. The stress and distractions of everyday life were tugging at the strings that kept them woven together. All they needed was time to be silent together, time to think together about different things. She knew that their hands and souls would fit together again like they always had, if they just gave it a chance. And now, here they were in their own made happiness. Sitting  here as one piece of human, making love in the most innocent of ways.