Throw rocks at my window,
Hold the boom box up high.
Send me on scavenger hunts,
Make me search far and wide.
Let me be your favorite song,
A tune you can never get out of your head.
Recall your fondest memories,
Those of when we first met.
Take me out to ball games,
Introduce me to all your friends.
I want to be your now and forever,
I want the cheesy moments to last a lifetime.
Take me in now and never look back,
We can have a life we create out of whack.

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea’s hills the setting Sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O’er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old ægina’s rock and Hydra’s isle
The God of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O’er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious Gulf, unconquered Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

  On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered Sage’s latest day!
Not yet—not yet—Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain’s once delightful dyes;
Gloom o’er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frowned before;
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron’s head,
The cup of Woe was quaffed—the Spirit fled;
The soul of Him that scorned to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

  But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The Queen of Night asserts her silent reign;
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o’er the Minaret;
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And sad and sombre ’mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus’ fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that passed them heedless by.
Again the ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war:
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown, where gentler Ocean deigns to smile.

  As thus, within the walls of Pallas’ fane,
I marked the beauties of the land and main,
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in poets’ lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turned to scan,
Sacred to Gods, but not secure from Man,
The Past returned, the Present seemed to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

  Hour rolled along, and Dian’******on high
Had gained the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O’er the vain shrine of many a vanished God:
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate’s glare
Checked by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O’er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant-form before me strode,
And Pallas hailed me in her own Abode!

  Yes,’twas Minerva’s self; but, ah! how changed,
Since o’er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appeared from Phidias’ plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle ægis bore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seemed weak and shaftless e’en to mortal glance;
The Olive Branch, which still she deigned to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch, and withered in her grasp;
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimmed her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourned his mistress with a shriek of woe!

  “Mortal!”—’twas thus she spake—”that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honoured ‘less’ by all, and ‘least’ by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek’st thou the cause of loathing!—look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive Tyrannies expire;
‘Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant, violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
‘These’ Cecrops placed, ‘this’ Pericles adorned,
‘That’ Adrian reared when drooping Science mourned.
What more I owe let Gratitude attest—
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgin’s fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name—above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hailed with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the Lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes are crossed:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian’s beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva’s shame.”

  She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
“Daughter of Jove! in Britain’s injured name,
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not:
Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyles’ towers
Survey Boeotia;—Caledonia’s ours.
And well I know within that ******* land
Hath Wisdom’s goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature’s germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some East, some West, some—everywhere but North!
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus—accursed be the day and year!
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth;
So may her few, the lettered and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.”

  “Mortal!” the blue-eyed maid resumed, “once more
Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.
Though fallen, alas! this vengeance yet is mine,
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
Hear then in silence Pallas’ stern behest;
Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest.

  “First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him ******* of a brighter race:
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly’s praise repay for Wisdom’s hate;
Long of their Patron’s gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, native gusto is—to sell:
To sell, and make—may shame record the day!—
The State—Receiver of his pilfered prey.
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West,
Europe’s worst dauber, and poor Britain’s best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o’er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Be all the Bruisers culled from all St. Giles’,
That Art and Nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his Lordship’s ’stone shop’ there.
Round the thronged gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o’er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims, ‘These Greeks indeed were proper men!’
Draws slight comparisons of ‘these’ with ‘those’,
And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.
When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixed with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loathed in life, nor pardoned in the dust,
May Hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Linked with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.

  “So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,
Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia’s self had done.
Look to the Baltic—blazing from afar,
Your old Ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such counsels, from the faithless field
She fled—but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.

“Look to the East, where Ganges’ swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish!—Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.

  “Look on your Spain!—she clasps the hand she hates,
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat?

  “Look last at home—ye love not to look there
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there’s nothing left.
‘Blest paper credit;’ who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption’s weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck’d each Premier by the ear,
Who Gods and men alike disdained to hear;
But one, repentant o’er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,—but calls, alas! too late:
Then raves for’——’; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog,
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign ‘log.’
Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a God.

  “Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanished power;
Gloss o’er the failure of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that Gold, the marvel of mankind.
And Pirates barter all that’s left behind.
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o’er the bales no bark may bear away;
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him ‘gainst the coming doom.
Then in the Senates of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
E’en factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

  “’Tis done, ’tis past—since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide o’er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains,
The bannered pomp of war, the glittering files,
O’er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country’s call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms.
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought;
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drenched with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughtered peasant and the ravished dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reaped field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o’er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy ***** who deserves them most?
The law of Heaven and Earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.”

Me pulls to you ..... so strongly attracted to you
color of your skin so ****, ******, and very attractive and beautiful
In my opinion you are the most beautiful in the all universe space, measurement, worlds
My compliments, the truth, and no there is no flattery. In my opinion, this is how looks the most beautiful girl in the world. You are a very beautiful girl. You're a very **** girl. You are perfect. You are a masterpiece. You phenomenon of beauty that can not be repeated. So juicy, so exotic. It seems to me that you have an amazing beauty. You are the most beautiful in the universe all the dimensions of all worlds, you are a supreme being supreme creation, the crown of evolution. You're beautiful melody of love. You are so beautiful, just magic.
You to the point attractive ****. What you want to do countless times having ***.
I only dream if only one your kisses that blossom my soul. And from the touch of your hands on my body, and your lustful-touch for my private parts. I only dream to merge with you forever, body and soul, I only dream of an eternal, continuous *** only with you alone. I only know one thing, that I will forever love only you
Only at your most beautiful, stripped the body, you want to watch and view forever.

Every cell and molecule of my body and my soul is overwhelmed with love only for you. I long to be your beloved husband for all eternity and all lives, and even after death

Do you desire, you are perfect. Soup-navel **** genius. Do you like the sound of "the sound of a roaring engine ****** smart cars": VUM) VUM) vuuuuuuuuoooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmm) You paradise, you're mens happinesse. Easy, clean, gentle, heavenly delight. You dream of a lifetime. You're pretty unrealistic. On even to the extent to which she can be beautiful, it's just unbelievable. You are the best gift of fate. Before your powerful ****** charm simply irresistible. You're the most beautiful girl in the whole universe. It's a great, great. You luxurious gem. This delicate pearl skin, you sample the true human beauty and femininity. All the other girls compared to you quite simply uy) uy) uy) uy) uy), believe me you are very vip **** girl. Most also come up on the throne of honor honored the goddess, the great pedestal. Majestic music sounds, so subtly and sensitively praising your beauty for you. In your arms a man feels in the higher realms of pleasure. **** regal lioness. Graceful affectionately snarling tigress. Puff) bang) bang) bang) bang) mega glue your beauty kills all competitors by felling. Amazingly beautiful. Sultry, cool and ****-Mego. You are elite, you're a lux, you extra class Your beauty captivates the hearts of men. The queen of all men, divinely beautiful, majestic lady. **** kitten. Mens ******* myself in the pants, with excitement at the sight of you. My heart you certainly won. Imagine that you are on the sandy planet, and every speck of gold pure gold, these grains of sand, the golden thoughts about you and only about you. You stunned, and I from you noodle. You just incredible girl, unbelievable. You're a *** symbol. You is Brand, (dreaming about you) cool, greattbl, superebl. You're like a beautiful peacock, revealing to the people the infinite perfection of their external and internal beauty. Words gently kiss and hug. The outline playful. Queen of ardent passion, so a bit awe velvet body. You idol of femininity and nature ... anywhere in the world to find such a beautiful sight as yours, which is just crazy, captivating with their enchantments of love, and you can not escape from the past and it is impossible to pass, look pierces the tenderness of their feelings.
you thermonuclear *** bomb you lux extra class.
Your passionate gaze iceberg melt. A look of love, perfect beauty. You are an incredibly beautiful girl, you're a mega-explosion of a nuclear bomb.  Boooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmm), a brain explosion, demolition of all its rivals mega wave. Sweet, sweet as honey. You're sweeter than any candy. You have the talent to charm the guys for their beauty. Your beautiful image of a gentle heart overflows with love for you. Goddess of all men. You are the most gentle in the world. You are wonderful. You as a model in these photos. Original and stylish. Pretty number one in the world. You like to radiate special energy of love and pulling for you. With you all the time you want to be, always and forever. With no one way can not be as good as you. You are infinitely deep and beautiful as the universe itself. Because it is simply not possible. After all, you're stylish, cool, cool. As you have all that is in the ideal image of a woman. Fantastically beautiful. Moon Flower, gently shimmering in the sunlight. How beautiful are your eyes, like a mermaid I want to plunge back to see you sitting on his throne, beautiful creature mermaid her voice beckons you, only your arms, I shall find eternal rest. Awesome adhesive modest. I can not believe my own eyes, how beautiful you are.  you like cream with chocolate .... same tender .... sweet ...... "Your charm charms as analgesia. Do you use it perfectly. Beautiful eyes look like hypnosis. Such a nice warm look. Concealing in itself a treasure of delicate beauty. Infinite height. from that soars from the love of you soul. I like your figure beautiful nymph ... I conquered your soft intriguing, mysterious look ... marvelous sweet charm tempts and drags a.
You are my sweet dream.
I give myself to you forever.
Your loyalty and sincere love.
That's all I want.
You only one I ever want.
You are my love, my fondest wish.
Your photo makes me so *****
I wait from you of reciprocity and understanding.
My word is my tongue that gently caresses your skin and soul.
Gentle and sweet flesh of thy nothing in this universe is not.
Hot passion of your reality in this I do not find.
My words and my eyes tell you only one thing.
The best you never find.
In) during) during) during) during) during) during) during) during) during) Check it out, acclaimed, reviewed, look. Composed for you, about you, tenderly loving s) a) a). **** Barbie, Babe attractive, graceful lady, tender crumb, kitty) kitty) charming cat, sweet baby. One only your smile, this is a great victory and the men feat. Rather Go up to the throne of the goddess honored the great pedestal. Lyrical music sounds just as sensitively and subtly praising your infinite beauty for you. You're a real beauty icon. Designed for real mens, and gentlemen. Vuuuuuuuufffffffffff) tuff) tutuf) tutuf) speak very gently and quietly) tshshshshshshshsh) sounds quiet hypnotic music of love) I'm fascinated by your sensual, delicate charms, leads to you inexplicable wonderful attraction, about how beautiful your magic your charms so vague and so beautiful like brave a charming dope) of your charismatic charm my calls so subtly, subtly and clearly, so sensuously and easily, fervently and passionately, and so ****, ****, cute and appetizing, attractive, beauty, beckoning your temptation, seduction, you're tempting, seductive life you my call, just you alone all the time waiting and call about how much obsession, just the warmth of your feelings gently warms and the confluence of feelings showers my thy soul seizes you soft velvet and silk, you're hot sweet gentle sweetness) only happiness) happiness) and serenity) verily, thou great priceless personality, being at the mercy of your hot emotions and sweet emotion, want to be in them always and forever), I gain peace and paradise on earth, the gentle heat of your mouth, and the warmth of your tender eyes , takes in the wonderful world of your bliss, perfect minute clock, and second only to you, and I want to be just with you, because you have life, you're my only reality, you are my world and the whole universe, keep true allegiance to you, and I just

quietly and timidly say that the only one you love. Without you, life is impossible. You're perfect, you're Suite) glossy, glamorous cute Moore) Moore) Cutie) Ya) ya) dastish fantastish) perfecto) shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik) You just mmmmmmmmmmm). This sweeeet) beautifuuuuuuuuul) well just aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh) pass out of love for you. Being with you is the continuous buzz, yummy relish) you so photo-film ****-genic photogenic, for movie movie-genic, urrrrrr). We humbly bow to your greatness, great, beautiful goddess, you are perfection. You cool muse, you're cool motif gives your beautiful image of a mega positive, you're a real Kulnev neo) neo) creative, "you're a real jackpot, juicy freshshshshshshsh)" you're the main leitmotif of this world, you're center of the world, a great Bagheera, the pearl of the world. Yes it's true because I think you only one I admire. The idol of all idols, the goddess of all goddesses. Take my word, because it's all true, and I sincerely hope that you give me at least not much pleased. Chorus: "You're **** Bugatti, Maserati best, fastest Ferrari, Pagani elegant. You stylish Bentley, luxury lambordizhni, royal Rolls Royce, wonderful noise voice, only for a cool boys ", voo tyzh) bad, whip. Your extraterrestrial beauty in a nutshell is this: "beautiful and saucily". And I long to see your gentle green light. abruptly, clearly, accurately, rarely smooth, sweet, stylish, strong, powerful, precise, transcripts, honorable. When you're near everything it is not important, so slow and so pointless. Great, great, grand girl yooo) Great, great, grand girl yooo) Great, great, grand girl yooo) ...... Yop) Thank you exist, let sit next to you, take my word for all this is not flattery, be your this is such a great honor, but this is a boon to any man, veeeest) Because you are the most cherished love and the dream of every man. Oooo) Olya-la-la **** figure in this world only you. All attention is focused only on you, everything pales in comparison around with you, and I want to be next only to you, but you pridnalezhat one. You are luxuriously best bust, sweet with sweet lips and mega **** predatory gaze from his amorous feelings rage, my wash only about you say, look what they do to me from the love of you are doing, your beautiful image on forever in itself charms shining, inspires, subordinates, intoxicating. **** goddess. Number one in the world. My low bow only to you) worship only you) Uffffffff) When you're around, getting hot, bright, nice, snip) snip) Vuoks) as a flamethrower let go the flame of his fine feelings, heart pounding more often you zhzhosh not for children, I want to see often, so sultry, beautiful, navel-soup finally, uhhhhhhhhhhh) love is so strong that even begins to hurt the heart. Luxury queen of all parties and catwalks, you unattainable pinnacle, all societies, beeeem) cupid shot of powerful magnum, oooo) complete demolition of all reason, can not hear anything except for you, and now can be seen, only you feel now just you and I I think that I was created just for you. Thank you, thank you, that drew on this as I am. For you, this is only for you, but it's all for you, all for you. I suffer, expect all the time I love you. You're the most desirable woman in the world. Epic, lyric, simpotichnaya) You're beautiful in everything in this world, only you're beautiful. You are endowed with charismatic energy inexplicably beautiful charm ... .ihi) ...... Mochi-mochi-mochi, manenko, manenko, manenko such mainka, mainka, krasotulechka, slyadkaya-slyadkaya girl Lapushka, adorable, cutie, baby, cute flower, candy, umnichka, bird, swallow, Rybonka, kitten, sun-golden-favorite-of-the-most-expensive, good-natured as fluffy hare .................. PSA) PSA) Oooh yeaaah) PSA-PSA) honor) worship, revere, and boundless respect, PSA-PSA) is the only real girl in this PSA, PSA world) you're the most epic, lyrical, lovely) PSA-PSA) you are best of the best, but you have no equal, PSA-PSA) you're the most endowed the title of the most beautiful in the history of mankind, PSA-PSA) you are the most important, the most glorious hero, the only one worthy of a goddess. PSA-PSA) is any place adorn, and instantly all the guys for their beauty by felling you fought, PSA, PSA) and all competitors envy into a deep depression makin PSA-PSA). Because you from herself beauty and eroticism idea tirelessly all its beauty and all are striking. Poetic, exotic, ****** lyrically. Living next to you harmony, grace, take my word, words can not convey, and I want to give you his heart. The sweetest voice only you, the skin so tender and pure, like a beautiful flower, on the face of my delight. So serene, so peaceful and quiet, static, nice and smooth, their places of origin is not in the universe, the soul like a light cloud in the sky hovering, always remembers you, you my love gives. The rays of your love life shines gently nurtures and warms, under your angel wings minds gradually falls asleep. A truly happy life does not happen without you. Next to you, my soul is in heaven remains, and only you, only one truly trusts. Your personality is loud, cool, beautiful, unique. Loud) loud) loud) You're a valuable copy of human beauty tadts-tadts-tadts) tadts-tat) tadts-tat) tadts-tat) uooo) uooo) uooo) tadts-tadts-tadts) tadts-tat) tadts-tat) tadts -tat) uooo) uooo) uooo) oooooo) you higher hooooootest bella mamasita, so moschnobl) with you all the time you want to be srochnobl) tochnobl) you're so cute, I love devotedly, furiously and fanatically. All zabyvaetsya around when you're around, captivated by your unique gentle gaze. Diamond beautiful, deep sapphire, stratsno rubirno, amazing emerald, pearl cute, I was very hooked, very surprised, so beautiful that a tear struck, and tenaciously for his soul took in your deep beautiful distance afield, was happily and easily, and suddenly the shower glittered and blossomed. One only makes your **** look and feel embarrassed blush. See how I want to enjoy it. It makes harder and harder to fall in love with you, I want to again and again appear near you, and never to say goodbye to you, and do not give up when you're around wants to smile with happiness, and you always stay on. Soft) soft) soft) How marvelous your gentle eyes, a beautiful shine, so deep beautiful color, hi) and the lips gifted hot, passionate force, like a sweet juicy berry, shine sweet tender crumb precious shine temptation, fantasy) romantic) ****** ) to you so goes the lipstick) gentle, spectacular pretty perfect) yes) so accurately) not lying, exactly) so refined, so perfect it all, only you, you can safely say all envious yeeeah) baa) baa) beeeee) each part of your body, is true, unattainable, infinitely ****, perfectly gospodstvennoe, divine perfection, which is the business card of your wonderful personality, a genuine sample of the sweet candy, delight, joy. You are an ideal model for the most famous, the channels, magazines, you have the sweetest voice in the world, so it is ideal in television and radio broadcast, a perfect icon of the media, the beautiful goddess of the VIP, I think so. And only love and honor. You are the most precious value in this universe. Heart and love is boundless open and so clean and perfect for you, all I say is not in vain, my love for you is a whole universe dedicated to you. You are beautiful in every way, so different, so special, your presence, gives a special feeling of harmony and peace, you are like a hot flaming fire of love and creation. Bright spark your feelings enliven, inspire. You are like a breath of life, fresh, cold water, your nature is so beautiful, so deep. Your acts as the earth itself give rise to life. You merry wind of freedom, infinitely great, free, you are giving hope and life, really need you like the air. Ooty) Ooty) Ooty) multi-billion-dollar celebrity babe, baby on triliard. I give you a well-deserved medals: for the record for the beauty of the world, a record for the entire beauty of the universe, the medal: in the beauty of a well-deserved
Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

What would I do without my fondest delirium?
he stalks my outside musings
he surprises my sharpest joy within
the dullest treading tumult.

I love the embrace of his watchful eye
he peruses my dreams,
a chef sampling caviar laced Hors d'oeuvres.

I speak to him through every reflection
the blank stare of vending machine glass,
the audacity of bathroom mirrored lashes,
the subtle wink of windows, skylights, vistas
every portal into another expanse
blasts me into the remainder of his silhouette.

What would I do without my fondest delirium?
he is the simplest clarity upon my devoted retinas

The first time that Evan laid eyes on her, he told himself that he was going to marry her. Embarrassed by his own fantasy, he quickly dismissed that thought as fast as it came to mind, telling himself what an idiot he was. Yet, from time to time, in spite of his reasoning, the thought would invade his skull.

What a dumb idea anyhow! It was just lame, teenage fantasyland! Girls did that kind of junk all the time, saying they were going to be Mrs. So-and-so, and thank God nobody could read his mind to know what he was dreaming up! Like she would marry him! He felt like a dumb ****, great in athletics, but far out of her league. Not even having the courage yet to ask a girl out on a date, and now he was already thinking of marriage! Pathetic! Really! Only a freshman in high school, he felt he should know better, lacking the good common sense his dad always tried to drive into him and had himself.

Ginny Delgado belonged with the smart kids, the brains of the school, although she seemed to stick more by herself, away from any stereotypical clique. Evan had first seen her in his biology class, and he remembered when other students wanted to copy off of her test papers. She never allowed any of that to happen, though, even if it would gain her popularity, false popularity but attention just the same.

It was a surprise to him that Ginny seemed to have few friends. Mostly, girls who were nerdy and smart did not seem very attractive or put together. Ginny seemed to have it all. She was smart and pretty, but she never identified with any of the girls who thought they were hot—and all other girls were not—and so she stood apart as one who shrouded herself in guarded aloofness.

And now here he was at his 20th high school reunion, one he really did not want to attend, but talked himself into going anyway. Perhaps, he could shoot the breeze and run into a few old buddies, his basketball friends. He didn't think that much of Ginny since he graduated from Fillmore, much less anybody from all those years ago. There really wasn’t any reason to reminisce once high school was behind him. School was not misery for Evan Stewart, but it wasn’t a time where everything seemed magical and carefree, not like for some students who looked upon those days as some of the fondest memories of their lives.

It was the class of ’92, and a huge banner displayed across one of the walls read, “Welcome back, class of 1992! Fillmore High School rules!” There was a good turnout, and Evan recognized a lot of people, although there were fewer that he knew by name.  

Sitting under dimly light lights, around a bunch of round tables, Evan now sat with the other alumni, stuck in a crowded hall with music blaring away from the early nineties. He had his overpriced meal. He had his few beers.

But what now?

He was almost bored to death. He was beginning to watch the clock more and more, scanning the room to see if he could possibly find reason to stay longer.  But then something happened that he never expected to happen, never even would have imagined it.

And, suddenly, his heart started to pick up its pace.

Was that her?

Evan thought he had made out the vague shape of a possibly familiar figure, an amazing and sudden surprise. Was that Ginny Delgado?

He wondered if he was seeing things as he intently stared across the room at the shadowy prospective of Ginger Delgado. But with the low amount of lighting, it just might not be her but someone he never even met before. How awkward would what be?

If it was Ginny, she was sitting next to a guy who seemed obnoxious and full of himself. Even from afar, he appeared to be a guy who would be in everyone’s face, with wild hand gestures, talking away and giving nobody else a chance for a word in edgewise.  If that really was Ginny, was that her husband? What a trip that would be! All the sense he once attributed to her would have to have gone out the window, if that were the case.

Sitting at Evan’s table were several of the other guys that were also heavy into high school basketball. Most were married and came with their wives—nobody was alone as Evan was—and now they all tried to act like they were thrilled to be all gathered together to show off their accomplishments. They were all passing around stories of life after high school, after basketball—some with talk of their college days, their wives, their kids, their jobs and careers—plenty of drinks to go around, and some toasting to the good, old days and to even brighter futures ahead. Evan was never married and did not have any children, so he felt he had much less to say. Most of those guys were not even very interesting, even though they tried to make it out that they had achieved so much in their lives. They may have been out of shape and past their prime, but all of them tried to act like they were the same as they were twenty years ago. None of what they all said impressed Evan at all, even though he tried to be interested.

He kept looking at the woman across the room, and the more he looked at her, the more he was convinced he was spot on about her. She had to be Ginny! He should just get up now and have the guts to ask her! But what would she say? Yes, I am Ginny Delgado, and this pushy **** next to me is my husband?

Though he was twenty years older, Evan felt just as awkward and as scared as he did in his freshman Biology class. It was better to just let the issue be. He’d rather save face than look like a total fool.

Suddenly, the unexpected occurred, something that gave Evan’s heart even more of a stir than he initially had when he spied her presence. Was it possible? Ginny now looked like she was starring back at him, as if they had somehow miraculously locked eyes and she had an uncanny ability to notice him back, from that afar off, now being transfixed onto him!  

You’ve really lost it now. What do you think, that she really notices you and remembers you?

Ginny stopped paying attention to the obnoxious man beside her and kept looking in Evan’s direction. She even reached her hand up and gave a little wave out his way.

Timidly, Evan waved back.

Standing up, Ginny started to make her way across the room. The obnoxious guy next to her looked on after her, like he could not believe she had wanted to part company with him. Evan guessed she was not his wife—thank God for that!

No, there is just no way she is coming over to talk to you. Alright, maybe she is. Get a hold of yourself now! Stop acting like a teenager and act like you actually know something about women. Come on, Evan! Get it together! She is coming.

Evan was right. It was Ginny Delgado! But she stopped short of his table to sit a down at the table in front of him, next to another fellow classmate of theirs, a female student that he vaguely remembered, though he did not know her name.

It was almost a relief she did not come to sit with him! Yet the disappointment was equally there. Seeing her more up close, Evan knew for sure it was Ginny. She was still quite pretty, perhaps even more so now, her medium brown hair and her dark purple dress complimenting each other. Not wanting to stare, Evan couldn’t help but to shoot many glances her way, without trying to be too obvious.
          
She smiled a lot, glad to talk to another person that she knew, and probably glad to be away from the guy she was stuck with before. Her eyes sparkled, and Evan never remembered ever seeing her so unguarded. In biology class, she was quiet, like he tended to be. Now she seemed so different, seemingly freer to be herself. Evan rarely saw her smile in high school, but thought she was very serious and sophisticated.

Before long, the DJ was now playing Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven. Couples at all tables were making their way to the dance floor. Soon, Ginny was approached by some guy who asked her to join him for a dance. She shook her head, no. Nonchalantly, the man turned to the woman that Ginny knew and asked her. She gladly accepted, said something to Ginny as if to have her permission and understanding, and then took the man’s hand to go to the dance floor. Ginny remained at the table by herself, looking on at the dancers with seemingly little regret that she declined an offer.

This might be your only chance, idiot. Are you going to blow it and be a wuss? Go up to her and tell her that you remember her. Go on! It is your perfect chance. What do you have to lose? If she isn’t interested, just go then. You’ve spent enough time here anyway!

“Hi…Ginny Delgado isn’t it?”

Evan asked as he approached her from behind. He cleared his throat. His voice had sounded so gravelly, as if he hadn’t uttered a single word all night. And his heart was beating a mile a minute, and he swore it must have been pulsating through his shirt. He was glad he put his suit jacket back on, for he was probably sweating like crazy.  

Ginny looked up, seemed to look puzzled, but then smiled a little. “I remember you!” she said with growing enthusiasm on her face. “Oh, but I’m sorry. You are going to have to tell me your name again”.

“Evan Stewart”, he replied. “We were in biology class together Remember? We were sophomores.”

A succession of slow songs was now being played, and Ginny’s friend was enjoying the time with her new dance partner. She certainly was in no hurry to make her way back to the table to rejoin sitting and talking with Ginny.

“Oh, sure! I remember now!” Ginny exclaimed. “Evan Stewart. Of course! You were the tall, shy guy that everyone liked because you knew how to win one for us. You were big into baseball, weren’t you?”

“Well, basketball was my best sport. I liked baseball, too, and track”, he replied humbly. It was amazing! She actually remembered more him than he thought she would!  “

Can I sit down and join you?” he asked, his courage and confidence growing.

“Oh, do!” Ginny replied, eagerly.

He felt like he was in seventh heaven. How cool was this? Sitting with Ginny Delgado? It was a bonus to a fairly descent reunion.

“So what have you been up to for the last twenty years?” Evan asked. His face was flush with embarrassment, as if he was just a guy who happened to luck out, but had no real skill in socializing with a woman he once fantasized about.

Ginny laughed a little, putting her hand up to her mouth as if her response was inappropriate. She responded, “You want a few hours? Or should I just give you a one word response?”

Evan smiled, blushing, as he tried to appear smooth and confident. “A one word response?” he asked.

“Yes. I can say it in one word—roller coaster….oops, that is two words”.

They both just sat there as I Can’t Make You Love Me, by Bonnie Raitt, played on.  

“Yeah…I guess I could say that about my life”, Evan agreed. “Would you like me to get you something from the bar?” he offered. “A coke or a beer?”

Ginny stared out onto the floor, as if she never heard him. “Isn’t it amazing how everyone comes to see the same people they always used to hang out with and still intend to hang out with to this day?” she asked. “How boring and predictable!”

Evan looked at her, puzzled, “What do you mean?”

Ginny continued to look out onto the floor, the music now upbeat dance music, and said, “Well, I mean you see all the football heroes all hanging out with each other. The members of the debate team are all huddled together as if they are preparing for the next debate. The cheerleaders, the drama club, the science club geeks…nothing has changed has it?”  

Evan shrugged his shoulders. “I guess that is typical. But that isn’t me. Sure, I saw some of the guys I played ball with, basketball, but the truth is I am not really that interested in hanging out with them.”

Ginny turned to look at him, her hazel eyes intent and solemn. Evan added, “I don’t have any contact with any of them. Nothing against them. I just don’t”.

They looked at each other in the eyes for a while. The silence was awkward. It was as Evan’s watching and waiting for her reply was the cue for Ginny to open up, and open up she did.

“I went to UCLA on a scholarship. I became a history major, world history, American history, women’s history. I never intended to teach, not at first. But it just seemed a good fit for me, and I have had plenty of teaching jobs, junior high school, high school. I moved to Sacramento.  I was briefly married after I got my first real teaching job there.”

Ginny’s eyes glistened. There was a pain in them that seemed locked in deep, not really wanting to expose itself too much, but coming out nonetheless.

Evan listened on, eagerly, so she went on, her gaze towards the dance floor “It did not work out. He cheated. He did it more than once and with more than one woman.  And now that I look back, I can see how wrong it all was, especially after my miscarriage. At first, I was so crushed, and I wanted to try again, for another baby, to try to please him, Jim, my husband. Thank God, I didn’t go on and on with him. I am glad I came back here…..back to Springdale.”

She looked back at Evan. He quickly looked away from her glance, his eyes downcast to the table. She wasn’t kidding. Her life was a roller coaster. He did not know what to say, felt so inadequate.

He decided to just share, in return.

”I was engaged once. It was a long engagement. She was a friend of a friend. Lana was her name. She told me she wanted to be with me, but she just wasn’t ready to make the big leap just right away. Actually, I am kind of glad now that I look back. We both owned our own shops. She was a hair stylist and I owned my own car repair shop, but that was about all we really had in common. I mean not really, even though we both liked sports a lot. We never seemed to agree on anything.”

Like he did, Ginny just listened intently, not attempting to make any reply. Evan added, “She was willing to cut me down in a second. I see that now”.

“Well how do you like that?!”

Evan and Ginny looked up as the woman that Ginny came over to see arrived back from the dance floor. She was walking, hand in hand, with her new found dance partner, fanning herself with her hand and laughing.

“Ginny’s got some company, too!” she exclaimed, beaming at Evan.    

Ginny replied, “Rhonda Flemming, this is Evan Stewart. She used to be Rhonda Boehner back in Fillmore”

Ginny turned to Evan to introduce him to her old classmate. “Evan…Rhonda. Evan, I don’t know if you two ever met each other before when we all went to school”.

“I’m not sure I have, either”, he replied, extending his hand to shake Rhonda’s. Rhonda quickly grabbed hold of his and gave it an overly enthusiastic shake.

“Hi, Evan!” she exclaimed "This handsome man next to me  is Brian. I never knew Brian until he asked me to dance!” she said excitedly. “And I am newly divorced and so is he! How strange is that?”

Brian shook Evan’s hand and then Ginny’s. “How’s it going?” he asked, grinning with embarrassment at Rhonda’s forward frankness.

“Ginny is one of the smartest people”, Rhonda went on to Evan and Brian. “We were once partners in an English class. We had to write a paper about each other. That was so fun in an otherwise booooooring class. Remember, Ginny?”

Ginny rolled her eyes, and made a shooing gesture with her hand to convey that Rhonda did not know what she was talking about. “I’m not as smart as anyone ever thought I was. I just worked hard and did my best, but thanks anyway for the compliment” , she said, modestly.  

“Oh, you were, too, Ginny!” Rhonda disagreed. She had a gleeful glint in her eyes. “Always so serious, Ginny Delgado! “

Rhonda grabbed Brian’s hand. “Hey, Brian and I are going to go mingle and walk around and see what trouble we can get into. You two want to join us?  

Ginny and Evan looked at each other as if to say “No way!” Ginny responded, “I think we are just fine here, but thanks”

Rhonda winked at her and then tugged at Brian’s hand. The pair of them went off together, leaving Evan and Ginny to themselves.

Evan smirked at Ginny, and then they both started cracking up with muffled laughter. Evan paused and then burst out laughing again. “Where did you find her?” he asked. A tear actually began to run down his face from laughing so hard, and he quickly wiped it away.

Ginny stopped laughing, tried to compose herself, but busted out with even more laugh

Let us keep our fondest memories
clutched close to our chests.

For if they are lost,
the wind will sweep them away
or the sea will toss them into its abysmal blue.

Rather, let us tie them to the laces of our shoes -
              and take them always with us.
Tattoo them onto our intellects -
              and reminisce upon them often.
Lock them in our hearts
              Do not let them die until they
              all
              stop
              beating.

I still don't sleep well at night sometimes. I miss you, whoever you are, or maybe I just miss having someone close to me I can put all of this love into, an outlet for my affection. Whatever the case, I spend my waking moments wondering where you are and my moments asleep wondering when. It's honestly getting harder to tell the difference between the two, the two infinite worlds of possibility where wild, unexpected things happen. Or don't. Sometimes the reality is more interesting than the dream.

There's a certain sense of tranquil quiet when you're lonely that I can only appreciate for about 5 minutes before my heart grips against its iron bars, looking for a key or a file or a spoon to leap its way out of my chest to freedom and adventure. It writes Morse code letters on skipped heartbeats to you, but I am a miserable translator and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my past, for all the wrongs I've committed in the nebulous black leviathan night, the almost-nightmare state of bleariness and hypnotic suggestibility. Clarity only comes when you spirit your marble curved likeness in the warm wooded embrace I do so long for in waking life.

I ramble and you float away, O kind angel of faint hope, white stone wings beating tremendously in sync like the buzzer of an alarm clock, striking me asleep again for daylight, somnambulating across the barren black-tar desert in search of water and finding only more black sand.

The nights have become more torturous without your colorless gaze. Please get here soon so I can tell you about how I've known you all my life.

With fondest regards,
Christian

Its been 3 years since you left this world,
Since then I'm always feeling alone and cold .
I miss you nana , you meant the world to me..
I wish you would just come back to me
What I wouldn't give to have things go back
to the way they used to be .

You were my best friend , my angel
the one i thought would never leave me
but god needed an angel , he called you up to heaven
the fondest memory of you i have is when i was seven.

You were more than my nana
you were my best friend
the one i wanted to follow right to the end.

You were the one who taught me to play piano and sing
You taught me to love
you are my beautiful angel whose high up above.

I miss you nana , i try to fight back the tears
you taught me to always face my fears
How i wish I could feel you near.

One day I will see you again
forever my angel we will be
together forever till the end.
So... I wait for the day ,
and I wait for the hour
a life without you is never what i desired.

I pray you are at peace
and that you are happy
cause nana life without you sure has been ******.

How sweetly shines, through azure skies,
  The lamp of Heaven on Lora’s shore;
Where Alva’s hoary turrets rise,
  And hear the din of arms no more!

But often has yon rolling moon,
  On Alva’s casques of silver play’d;
And view’d, at midnight’s silent noon,
  Her chiefs in gleaming mail array’d:

And, on the crimson’d rocks beneath,
  Which scowl o’er ocean’s sullen flow,
Pale in the scatter’d ranks of death,
  She saw the gasping warrior low;

While many an eye, which ne’er again
  Could mark the rising orb of day,
Turn’d feebly from the gory plain,
  Beheld in death her fading ray.

Once, to those eyes the lamp of Love,
  They blest her dear propitious light;
But, now, she glimmer’d from above,
  A sad, funereal torch of night.

Faded is Alva’s noble race,
  And grey her towers are seen afar;
No more her heroes urge the chase,
  Or roll the crimson tide of war.

But, who was last of Alva’s clan?
  Why grows the moss on Alva’s stone?
Her towers resound no steps of man,
  They echo to the gale alone.

And, when that gale is fierce and high,
  A sound is heard in yonder hall;
It rises hoarsely through the sky,
  And vibrates o’er the mould’ring wall.

Yes, when the eddying tempest sighs,
  It shakes the shield of Oscar brave;
But, there, no more his banners rise,
  No more his plumes of sable wave.

Fair shone the sun on Oscar’s birth,
  When Angus hail’d his eldest born;
The vassals round their chieftain’s hearth
  Crowd to applaud the happy morn.

They feast upon the mountain deer,
  The Pibroch rais’d its piercing note,
To gladden more their Highland cheer,
  The strains in martial numbers float.

And they who heard the war-notes wild,
  Hop’d that, one day, the Pibroch’s strain
Should play before the Hero’s child,
  While he should lead the Tartan train.

Another year is quickly past,
  And Angus hails another son;
His natal day is like the last,
  Nor soon the jocund feast was done.

Taught by their sire to bend the bow,
  On Alva’s dusky hills of wind,
The boys in childhood chas’d the roe,
  And left their hounds in speed behind.

But ere their years of youth are o’er,
  They mingle in the ranks of war;
They lightly wheel the bright claymore,
  And send the whistling arrow far.

Dark was the flow of Oscar’s hair,
  Wildly it stream’d along the gale;
But Allan’s locks were bright and fair,
  And pensive seem’d his cheek, and pale.

But Oscar own’d a hero’s soul,
  His dark eye shone through beams of truth;
Allan had early learn’d controul,
  And smooth his words had been from youth.

Both, both were brave; the Saxon spear
  Was shiver’d oft beneath their steel;
And Oscar’s ***** scorn’d to fear,
  But Oscar’s ***** knew to feel;

While Allan’s soul belied his form,
  Unworthy with such charms to dwell:
Keen as the lightning of the storm,
  On foes his deadly vengeance fell.

From high Southannon’s distant tower
  Arrived a young and noble dame;
With Kenneth’s lands to form her dower,
  Glenalvon’s blue-eyed daughter came;

And Oscar claim’d the beauteous bride,
  And Angus on his Oscar smil’d:
It soothed the father’s feudal pride
  Thus to obtain Glenalvon’s child.

Hark! to the Pibroch’s pleasing note,
  Hark! to the swelling nuptial song,
In joyous strains the voices float,
  And, still, the choral peal prolong.

See how the Heroes’ blood-red plumes
  Assembled wave in Alva’s hall;
Each youth his varied plaid assumes,
  Attending on their chieftain’s call.

It is not war their aid demands,
  The Pibroch plays the song of peace;
To Oscar’s nuptials throng the bands
  Nor yet the sounds of pleasure cease.

But where is Oscar? sure ’tis late:
  Is this a bridegroom’s ardent flame?
While thronging guests and ladies wait,
  Nor Oscar nor his brother came.

At length young Allan join’d the bride;
  “Why comes not Oscar?” Angus said:
“Is he not here?” the Youth replied;
  “With me he rov’d not o’er the glade:

“Perchance, forgetful of the day,
  ’Tis his to chase the bounding roe;
Or Ocean’s waves prolong his stay:
  Yet, Oscar’s bark is seldom slow.”

“Oh, no!” the anguish’d Sire rejoin’d,
  “Nor chase, nor wave, my Boy delay;
Would he to Mora seem unkind?
  Would aught to her impede his way?

“Oh, search, ye Chiefs! oh, search around!
  Allan, with these, through Alva fly;
Till Oscar, till my son is found,
  Haste, haste, nor dare attempt reply.”

All is confusion—through the vale,
  The name of Oscar hoarsely rings,
It rises on the murm’ring gale,
  Till night expands her dusky wings.

It breaks the stillness of the night,
  But echoes through her shades in vain;
It sounds through morning’s misty light,
  But Oscar comes not o’er the plain.

Three days, three sleepless nights, the Chief
  For Oscar search’d each mountain cave;
Then hope is lost; in boundless grief,
  His locks in grey-torn ringlets wave.

“Oscar! my son!—thou God of Heav’n,
  Restore the prop of sinking age!
Or, if that hope no more is given,
  Yield his assassin to my rage.

“Yes, on some desert rocky shore
  My Oscar’s whiten’d bones must lie;
Then grant, thou God! I ask no more,
  With him his frantic Sire may die!

“Yet, he may live,—away, despair!
  Be calm, my soul! he yet may live;
T’ arraign my fate, my voice forbear!
  O God! my impious prayer forgive.

“What, if he live for me no more,
  I sink forgotten in the dust,
The hope of Alva’s age is o’er:
  Alas! can pangs like these be just?”

Thus did the hapless Parent mourn,
  Till Time, who soothes severest woe,
Had bade serenity return,
  And made the tear-drop cease to flow.

For, still, some latent hope surviv’d
  That Oscar might once more appear;
His hope now droop’d and now revived,
  Till Time had told a tedious year.

Days roll’d along, the orb of light
  Again had run his destined race;
No Oscar bless’d his father’s sight,
  And sorrow left a fainter trace.

For youthful Allan still remain’d,
  And, now, his father’s only joy:
And Mora’s heart was quickly gain’d,
  For beauty crown’d the fair-hair’d boy.

She thought that Oscar low was laid,
  And Allan’s face was wondrous fair;
If Oscar liv’d, some other maid
  Had claim’d his faithless *****’s care.

And Angus said, if one year more
  In fruitless hope was pass’d away,
His fondest scruples should be o’er,
  And he would name their nuptial day.

Slow roll’d the moons, but blest at last
  Arriv’d the dearly destin’d morn:
The year of anxious trembling past,
  What smiles the lovers’ cheeks adorn!

Hark to the Pibroch’s pleasing note!
  Hark to the swelling nuptial song!
In joyous strains the voices float,
  And, still, the choral peal prolong.

Again the clan, in festive crowd,
  Throng through the gate of Alva’s hall;
The sounds of mirth re-echo loud,
  And all their former joy recall.

But who is he, whose darken’d brow
  Glooms in the midst of general mirth?
Before his eyes’ far fiercer glow
  The blue flames curdle o’er the hearth.

Dark is the robe which wraps his form,
  And tall his plume of gory red;
His voice is like the rising storm,
  But light and trackless is his tread.

’Tis noon of night, the pledge goes round,
  The bridegroom’s health is deeply quaff’d;
With shouts the vaulted roofs resound,
  And all combine to hail the draught.

Sudden the stranger-chief arose,
  And all the clamorous crowd are hush’d;
And Angus’ cheek with wonder glows,
  And Mora’s tender ***** blush’d.

“Old man!” he cried, “this pledge is done,
  Thou saw’st ’twas truly drunk by me;
It hail’d the nuptials of thy son:
  Now will I claim a pledge from thee.

“While all around is mirth and joy,
  To bless thy Allan’s happy lot,
Say, hadst thou ne’er another boy?
  Say, why should Oscar be forgot?”

“Alas!” the hapless Sire replied,
  The big tear starting as he spoke,
“When Oscar left my hall, or died,
  This aged heart was almost broke.

“Thrice has the earth revolv’d her course
  Since Oscar’s form has bless’d my sight;
And Allan is my last resource,
  Since martial Oscar’s death, or flight.”

“’Tis well,” replied the stranger stern,
  And fiercely flash’d his rolling eye;
“Thy Oscar’s fate, I fain would learn;
  Perhaps the Hero did not die.

“Perchance, if those, whom most he lov’d,
  Would call, thy Oscar might return;
Perchance, the chief has only rov’d;
  For him thy Beltane, yet, may burn.

“Fill high the bowl the table round,
  We will not claim the pledge by stealth;
With wine let every cup be crown’d;
  Pledge me departed Oscar’s health.”

“With all my soul,” old Angus said,
  And fill’d his goblet to the brim:
“Here’s to my boy! alive or dead,
  I ne’er shall find a son like him.”

“Bravely, old man, this health has sped;
  But why does Allan trembling stand?
Come, drink remembrance of the dead,
  And raise thy cup with firmer hand.”

The crimson glow of Allan’s face
  Was turn’d at once to ghastly hue;
The drops of death each other chace,
  Adown in agonizing dew.

Thrice did he raise the goblet high,
  And thrice his lips refused to taste;
For thrice he caught the stranger’s eye
  On his with deadly fury plac’d.

“And is it thus a brother hails
  A brother’s fond remembrance here?
If thus affection’s strength prevails,
  What might we not expect from fear?”

Roused by the sneer, he rais’d the bowl,
  “Would Oscar now could share our mirth!”
Internal fear appall’d his soul;
  He said, and dash’d the cup to earth.

“’Tis he! I hear my murderer’s voice!”
  Loud shrieks a darkly gleaming Form.
“A murderer’s voice!” the roof replies,
  And deeply swells the bursting storm.

The tapers wink, the chieftains shrink,
  The stranger’s gone,—amidst the crew,
A Form was seen, in tartan green,
  And tall the shade terrific grew.

His waist was bound with a broad belt round,
  His plume of sable stream’d on high;
But his breast was bare, with the red wounds there,
  And fix’d was the glare of his glassy eye.

And thrice he smil’d, with his eye so wild
  On Angus bending low the knee;
And thrice he frown’d, on a Chief on the ground,
  Whom shivering crowds with horror see.

The bolts loud roll from pole to pole,
  And thunders through the welkin ring,
And the gleaming form, through the mist of the storm,
  Was borne on high by the whirlwind’s wing.

Cold was the feast, the revel ceas’d.
  Who lies upon the stony floor?
Oblivion press’d old Angus’ breast,
  At length his life-pulse throbs once more.

“Away, away! let the leech essay
  To pour the light on Allan’s eyes:”
His sand is done,—his race is run;
  Oh! never more shall Allan rise!

But Oscar’s breast is cold as clay,
  His locks are lifted by the gale;
And Allan’s barbèd arrow lay
  With him in dark Glentanar’s vale.

And whence the dreadful stranger came,
  Or who, no mortal wight can tell;
But no one doubts the form of flame,
  For Alva’s sons knew Oscar well.

Ambition nerv’d young Allan’s hand,
  Exulting demons wing’d his dart;
While Envy wav’d her burning brand,
  And pour’d her venom round his heart.

Swift is the shaft from Allan’s bow;
  Whose streaming life-blood stains his side?
Dark Oscar’s sable crest is low,
  The dart has drunk his vital tide.

And Mora’s eye could Allan move,
  She bade his wounded pride rebel:
Alas! that eyes, which beam’d with love,
  Should urge the soul to deeds of Hell.

Lo! see’st thou not a lonely tomb,
  Which rises o’er a warrior dead?
It glimmers through the twilight gloom;
  Oh! that is Allan’s nuptial bed.

Far, distant far, the noble grave
  Which held his clan’s great ashes stood;
And o’er his corse no banners wave,
  For they were stain’d with kindred blood.

What minstrel grey, what hoary bard,
  Shall Allan’s deeds on harp-strings raise?
The song is glory’s chief reward,
  But who can strike a murd’rer’s praise?

Unstrung, untouch’d, the harp must stand,
  No minstrel dare the theme awake;
Guilt would benumb his palsied hand,
  His harp in shuddering chords would break.

No lyre of fame, no hallow’d verse,
  Shall sound his glories high in air:
A dying father’s bitter curse,
  A brother’s death-groan echoes there.

You will not see my shadow pass
the gate of mournings eerie dark
Nor hear my voice among the reeds
that grow above my silenced heart
No fondest kiss to furrowed brow
to quell the torment of your making
for you have left me here alone
to sleep the sleep that knows no waking.

no, i don't need an outlet: talk to the public,
they tell you you're
either a well guised political machine,
a psychiatrist,
           or an oddity: come October time
propheteering rather than profiteering;
your choice, not mine:
   i look at poetry like
a plumber might look at a toilet:
go in and get the francophone out!
    so pardoning the French
is lost, as casual phrasing goes, woop,
  away away Superman included.

oh right, you might think i'm spelling
something Evangelical,
sure, i hope you do or d.p. as in
do please,
           what with the cool of Wall St.
sprechen d.l. (down low);
i had a few scribbled notes,
yes, Yanky, my laptop broke down
and i'm reduced to pen & paper
         like handcock & *******,
easy does the ****** of loser vill
           (can we drop the e
for the sake of autocorrect being right
when the big words matter? thanks) -
Platonism is plainly Thespian,
             Platonic thought is a Thespian
"espionage", get used to it,
you haven't matured into Aristotelian
         autism: you still want to act,
to puppeteer that shadows of people
without ever *being the people,
don't take it as if it's supposed to be unlikely:
there's a boss around every corner:
whether you get paid or don't, which is fun,
because you state an authority but
still only play the cameo.
      reminiscent guise literature
of rewatching that t.v. phenomenon
that's billions -
             oh sure, t.v. these days overshadows
cinema, cinema is worth jack-****,
it's poverty is intrinsic in forming ideas
or reversed "Latin" grammar  idea-fermentation,
i said English loves to hyphenate
two kindred words,
    like that ego theory
             with the Germanic self-theorising,
self-enabling, self-interest, self-haemorrhaging
  gusto of the capital -
    what a way to finish, i as a prefix
toward robotic modula.

(i write pending, but ensure the enso,
            or Swahili wasabi sting of
green horseradish,
       same so, i live dangerously, or pretty
much on the sly,
           if i tell the taxpayers
  they're getting their money's worth
i'll bound to see a third runway at Heathrow:
got my nose in an Alsatians' buttocks mind you).

so...

i was going to end with it, but i'm afraid i must
begin with it, page entitled

a. a rebellion from the top?
    or right, it only comes from the bottom,
the guillotine and all,
  but never the despotic cupcake for an Antoinette,
right? wrong!
                coming from a worker's background,
i'd been happy doing the ******* roofs of
the Tate Gallery among other examples,
but i was educated as a chemist,
  and, i was told, you need toothpaste, or
am i wrong in that assumption?
     picture it thus:
a son of a roofer is real smart,
      goes to Edinburgh, gets his money's worth
in terms of tuition, over 30 hours year three
of his chemistry degree, when things were still
decent, ~£1,250 a year (one thousand two hundred
and fifty pounds): with words like that
you might sketch Dante and Donatello and
the Italian Renaissance in terms of clapping the ****
away at the gesture...
     but no, it was like that, study chemistry
and you get your money's worth in terms of tuition,
so how the **** did i descend from the "high" tier
of the sciences into the murk of poetry
and humanism?
       history of science and David Hume:
black swans to mind, also.
                          but the other kid in question
was a son of a doctor / radiologist,
and this talk of rebellion from the top?
he couldn't stomach a shifting hierarchy,
he couldn't stomach social progress,
     had i or hadn't i invested my pleasure
time in reading philosophy is no one's business,
had i made a professional wage from it,
sure, but i wasn't intending to do so:
      what's your favourite colour sort of
question and whether truant of the zeitgeist:
the ******* guillotine, mate!
            i just can't perpetuate this loaf of wording,
but it's necessary:
    of jealousy so corrosive, of jealousy so lined
with lice, only then a god is spawned -
           the person in question?
a skiving belittling camel jockey -
and that's me being polite...
       you can almost become auto-suggestive
of needing to cite: what Abel did next when
the roaring Milton God subsided and
     wanked a crucifix that later became 2000 years of
history: or in the making.

i can be a pompous and bombastic parrot
          that cites Polly this, Polly that,
but i can speak to a scaffolder and laugh: with him,
and not, at him...
                 because i know my bombastic mr. fantastic
behaviour about spending aeons in a library
   rather than sniffing bullseyes and ****
        is made to be the fo' sho' lingua rapper tinder
of something or other that doesn't require me
to foolishly date...
                         **** it, cheaper at the brothel.

...........................

                        oh­ i'm just getting started, hence
the title with (penting) in it: no, not really mr. tough-guy,
just a **** break and a smoke and all that's
necessary in terms of transparency, begging to
be revealed in all forms of literary composition...
  
let's just say: a new interpretation of the paragraph,
     for me reading books, a paragraph means Sunday,
1905... because of the constipation and what-not,
   a comma makes me feel like i need a pause to
hiccup or sneeze,
       a full-dot is never a full-dot unless it's a full-dot
and then it's a definite article of end, rather than
the intermediate an end: let's start over, once again;
       but when have you actually experienced
a Macgyver of what's otherwise a "work in progress"?
answer? never!
               you never have: you had to become
censored by publishers and editors for everything to
look the end-product squeaky-clean!
                   unless published posthumously...
and then... you might already be dead:
you never got to see a work in progress...
   and believe me, i have 8 pages worth of notes to
encode into something that's not
that fable about a boy waking up Barbarossa
from slumber and upon seeing crows
shouting: messerschmitt! messerschmitt! messerschmitt!
well, a diet of hanzel und gretyl will do that
to you, you get a fetish like Shpielberg and direct
the Indiana Jones franchise...
                       funny little me, "phony" Englishman
speaking a piquant variation of Essex banter,
8 years in Poland and of memories i speak of the fondest
in my life, and 22 years in this rotting *******...
                    i feel less organic, more inorganic,
i.e. metallic,
       it's like my insides were hollowed out
and i was faking that i am actually being -
   weird sensation, ask any displaced individual when
they have the organism of a Slavic, but a soul
of a German... feels, ******* weird...
                        i mean, Nietzsche and that complement
that the Poles are the French in the ethnic category?
what are the English in the Slav category then?
                          most likely Ukrainian.
i dare you to find a philosopher with a similar dilemma,
i dare you: in light of how this whole
gaining of fame works, not one wrote about
being displaced... well... unless you're talking about
Moses -

                (haven't even started, i need a drink).

there was no social tract anyway!
    to be forced into accepting insemination
        when the forward wording was:
       "i'm talking counter-contraceptive
measures" & 'i want you to *** in me'.
                 ditto encapsulating quote
for ambiguity, the otherwise: real life.
       is my ***** worth more than me?
have i not transcended a weak bladder / **** muscles?
       a pseudo-humanity, intrinsic in man
but not not in beast?
                    i call upon a reversal of what's
a staging of ****, or money grubbing -
                with a woman's twist of the Grimm tale:
as she said: i want this man,
              i will impose a moral grounding / battlefield,
judgement on him! entrapment!
and there's me apologising for the "****" / so-called,
in a fully-consenting intimacy:
   well, *****, why don't you? another Beethoven
is waiting? who's the whopper feminist these days?!
               me? you?! hardly you!
   i consented to a full intimacy,
        is ***** a foetus?
tissue would know,
    or a twisted fetish for ****** cream
advertisement in ****, huh?
              sure, my socks smell, but so does
your moral instinct.
                        the difference is that that i get to
say airy, while you get to say fairy.
                         it really takes a man respecting
a woman's freedom: i seriously thought you
were advocating the right to abort
as you might avert ****...
    sure: i'm sorry i inseminated you,
can you please treat it as a tear-jerker experience
of a rom-com that's actually a transvestite-rom
  and needs 50 years to ferment for the earthquakes
and heartaches and cha cha attacks?
              to me it's an apron needing a wash,
to you it a ******* moral dilemma needing
a ******'s rights to not father a child and you
needing your body to unnecessarily incubate it
so you get the Catholic nod... bonkers!
    yes, i impregnated a girl, at university:
i avoided white trash at school, sorry, but it's true,
i liked reading... let me stress that: i liked reading,
      or bold if italics and colon Gemini be antiquity...
she lacked the character judgements,
the 'why he didn't stay' method statement...
she called my friend and study buddy a troll
based on her aesthetic tastes...
          i could have had a family now, and all
the responsibilities, it just didn't fit into
a replica of Cleopatra and Anthony *******
when they honestly didn't have ******* to claim
as their own...
          jeez (replica of the hand-written transcript) -
writing this on pen + paper is like *******
a **** for reach a champagne fizz of ******
for an hour - thank you keyboard and the digital
pixel off blank: ******* is less painful
than writing with that oddity that's handwriting).
there was no social contract anyway!
     it's not like i was married, there's
no unwanted child joke in this: i do find abortion
abhorrent within a social contract, a marriage,
but outside of marriage? are you ******* kidding me?!
you an Irish priest or something?
       there was no social contract,
did i sign a social contract akin to marriage?
      am i in this for the shambles?
of course i didn't get married,
there was no +ring,
                     sure abortion is abhorrent,
but under a social contract,
  without a social contract (marriage)
i,    had,    no,         obligation.
      what, in order to practice a variation of Islam
on a woman's whim?
    *******.
                     plus i had the gross indecency
gay men have with surrogate mother prostitution;
oh wait, it isn't that? my bad.
            i always had a nicety divisiveness for
incubators... a 9 month ****, with dividends...
        really: feminism can **** itself!
because aren't we at a stage of rhetorically counter-validating
what we abhor in certain Asian communities?
oh sure, the patriarchs are gone,
forced marriages are gone too...
          but didn't i just describe a case
of forced marriage, where a western girl is given
all the powers to reign over a young man
as any despot might over a worker
so he can "think" and drink cocktails and
chuckle over his position between cocktails?
      
  i said abortion, yes, i didn't like the girl's aesthetic,
and you know what? that thing you call abortion,
apart from the fact that the foetus has no soul
the baby neither: not until the diaper is off...
to learn to strain the muscles outside the womb:
you really forgot that the implant of soul
or the later disputed notion of god
is only implantable once the memory kicks into
gear...
               only when you start to remember
is the human person born:
   beyond that it's still nature's brutalist lottery...
maybe a Beethoven might have been born,p
but who cares? we already have a Beethoven!
it's avoiding consented ****:
that's feminism and 9 months spared
the continuation of endured affair / "relationship",
i seriously thought that's what women
were campaigning for... obviously it's counter!
   i claim soul outside of a woman's body:
when the ****** thing passes the diaper gym
and learns to automate the bladder and the ****...
then i say: worthy an implant of a soul...
or chauvinistically that's counter and double-****
of 9 months and Bach with his 14 children,
and the Borgia Popes...
          but at least we have the surrogate "mothers"
and that pretty Disney scenario of two gay dads
to fictionalise into watchable Platonic cavemen
when the eyes aren't glued to the 2D.
why do you think such thoughts ferment in
the heterosexual imagining of actuality?
                your utopian counter-clockwise
has already extended into China being the only
provable state of physical activity...
    and the western zoo of mental philosophical
build-up-detachment? your mental health
scenario only suggests you created acid professions...
at least the physical "antiquity" of China
is compensated by a universal shortcoming:
death and mortality...
you created acid-baths: sport and completely mental
professions: YOU'RE SICK!
     honestly!
     people used to enjoy physical professions,
and the essence of such professions?
no immediate competitiveness!
         you replaced physical professions
with sports!
                  and compensated the need for
physical hands-on with the ****** gym!
no wonder you countered-Darwinism while
adapting the need to advertise it
            and made so many young people
mentally ill...
      because your whole mental estrangement
is the sauce or a broth that's currently on the boil!

Walking in a circle is, in the fondest sense, going absolutely nowhere, even though it feels better than walking completely backwards. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I have never even been face to face with you and mine grows weaker and weaker with the length of time between the moments I get to touch you. The strange thing is that, prior to meeting you, I have a hard time describing what it was I was even doing - the storms you have hurled into my quiet life is all I know now, and I never realized just how flimsy my own infrastructure was. I have seeped into the walls you throw dishes in and the floors you roll around on, and I feel everything your fists do equally, if not more. Who knows my body better than you? The places I dip and divide and ***** and bend; who has held me down with nothing but words and sweaty silence that lay thick enough for us to cut with butcher knives? My stomach is trained to clench is desperation when your name is mentioned and I am nervous around anyone who shares with you; a picture is worth a thousand words, but your name is worth one million, and you've never spoken mine aloud but I have murmured yours, like a mantra, repeatedly, groaning in the way wounded animals do and trembling with that same fear. I can't count on my fingers how many nights I traded sleep for a reason to talk to you, and all too well do I know how many lifetimes are crammed into the seconds before an anticipated phone call. People might wonder how I even survive when you aren't around, but how many ways can a dog entertain himself when the master is away? Oftentimes, in a state of unwarranted panic, I claw at my clothes as though you are lurking underneath, and only rarely are you there, metaphysically. I am not the only person the rain falls on; I understand that there are plenty of others who are lulled by the charm of someone who knows nature of a human being in the way that otherworldly creatures might, but in this instance I know that everyone is haunted in their own exclusive way, and you are always flickering in the periphery of my blurry vision when my bedroom lights are out.

my fondest memory:
climbing into the bed of my father’s truck
with my sister by my side,
hands over our mouths to hush the giggles
and the cold metal on my back.
my mom drove to the fire station from home with us in the trunk,
my grandmother cooed in surprise.
I could see only the sky
the milky blue gray of mixed paint colors
like the walls of a baby boy’s room who died at birth.
the sky was interrupted by flocks of birds flying by
and I felt that I could fly with them,
green pine trees I could smell if I closed my eyes,
spindly brown branches
telephone lines and cracked street signs,
the ghosts of clouds stagnant in the air.
and I felt happy
despite the cuts on my thighs and wrists
I felt free
the wind didn’t chill my bones
and neither did the metal
I couldn’t feel cold
only euphoria.
the road twisted and turned,
I felt the ridges of the trunk roll over my spine,
I rode in the back seat on the way home.

- ck

She has dressed Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o and Uganda's chess Woman Candidate Master Phiona Mutesi for the premiere of 'Queen of Katwe'. She has also designed several Miss Uganda and Miss Tourism contestants among others.

Yet Brenda Niwagaba Maraka, who is undoubtedly among Uganda's top fashion designers, describes herself as "just a simple person who loves work and fashion". She is also quick to recognise people who have inspired her, including renowned fashion designer and artist Stella Atal and Xenson Samson Ssenkaaba

In January 2007, Maraka officially launched 'Brendamaraka' as a fashion label.

"I work to represent Uganda as a tropical country through fashion and also extend Kampala's position as a fashion hub," said Maraka.

For the love of developing and inspiring others through her fashion skills, Maraka grooms two talented and interested students in fashion and design every year.

Come next year January, Maraka is set to showcase at her own fashion show marking ten years in the industry.

It will be the highest point for a woman who from way back, as a young girl, has loved being artistic. It was no surprise that she concentrated on art in school and one of her fondest memories as a student is designing costumes for school plays and beauty pageants.

"That confirmed my goal in life of creating designs through my own fashion label," she says, "I love to create new things."

At 13 years old, after completing primary education, Maraka proceeded to Namasagali College in Kamuli for O-level and these to her were years of fun and building character. She then left to a new environment of only girls at Trinity College Nabbingo for A-level and by the time she left she had forged a career path.

"It was a totally different and harder experience. However, by the time I completed Form six, I knew what I was meant to be a fashion designer courtesy of the school's arrangement on career guidance," says Maraka.

She was offered several opportunities including one on government sponsorship at Makerere University all of which were meant to grow her fashion career but Maraka settled for a fashion design program at the London Academy of Design and dress making where she completed in 2005.

Maraka chose exposure to international fashion trends at the London school at a cost rather than free education in Uganda. She rates it as a priceless decision that has paid off.

In 2014 as part of her internship program, Maraka made a maiden runaway showcase during the Uganda International Fashion Week and since then she has not looked back. She has participated in a number of fashion events both in Uganda and UK.

In comparing London's fashion industry to Uganda, Maraka says London has already established big brands and it is close to impossible for anyone starting out.

"The industry is faster, bigger and people produce too many new collections every year as the market demands," she says.

By contrast, she says, Uganda offers limitless opportunities are limitless or, in her words, "There is room to define who you are".

Maraka was born in Soroti-Teso, Eastern Uganda in 1981. She was raised by a single mother Elizabeth Maraka who worked long at the Soroti Flying School and she says is her great inspiration. She used to make dresses for her and remains her stylist to date. Maraka grew up as an only child because her twin siblings died. It is the reason she is also called Akello, meaning 'follower of twins'.

Liteside

Any three things we don't know about you?

I am an only child of my mother. I really love sports to the extent that I train for kickboxing. I had a dream of representing Uganda for RIO 2016 though it didn't come to pass. When I am confident enough to have my face punched, I will get to the ring.

I love to travel and for this year, I chose to visit every part of Uganda that I had never visited. One of them was Kidepo and it was a breathtaking experience where I realised I had made it. I also visited the pyramids in Cairo.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Doing what you love. If you think you can regret doing it, then it's not worth doing. Even when you fail to achieve at something you loved doing, you gain satisfaction.

What is your greatest fear?

I have a phobia for rodents. I can face anything in life but not them.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I am not a confrontational person yet sometimes I wish I could be one to give my all. It makes people walk all over me.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

I just don't like dishonest people. I appreciate honesty.

Which living person do you most admire?

My Mother, Elizabeth Maraka; she taught me to be a strong person, believe in myself and to see good in people. I am privileged to live with her even as an adult.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Everything about improving my fashion and design career.

What is the greatest thing you have ever done?

I still have to do it and I am planning on how to achieve it.

What is your current state of mind?

I am at peace and love my life.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

That whole saying of 'Government should help us' or 'government has not done much' just breaks my heart. How I wish the same people would ask themselves what they have done for government as well. Anyone can start small and grow big.

What does being powerful mean to you?

Being able to make a difference in someone's life or inspire someone. It can also mean being well connected in society.

On what occasion do you lie?

I like to be real.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

When I was young I was chubby and I didn't like it but I have since found peace in myself.

Which living person do you most despise?

Even when I see the worst in a person, I don't destroy bridges because I might need them tomorrow.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Having a plan or purpose in life.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Having a purpose in life.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

I like saying 'you know' and 'yeah'.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

I guess it is my Mum but there are so many other people I love.

When and where were you happiest?

There is no one single moment because there are so many things I do that bring happiness to me. Finishing School in 2006 was a happy moment but also each time I remember when I had my first fashion show during my internship in 2004, I am fulfilled.

Which talent would you most like to have?

I love music and may be one day I hope I will drop an album. I used to play a violin and hope that one day I will do it once more.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I am just in love with myself.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I am still a work in progress; I haven't yet reached there.

If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

As me and fix everything I didn't do from as far as a child.

Where would you most like to live?

Uganda but particularly in Karamoja and Kidepo; the landscape and weather are amazing. It can rain so heavily and dry up so fast.

What is your most treasured possession?

I never got to see my grandfather but I was given a crucifix from his things. It has that sentimental value and makes me relate with him. But even when everything is taken away from me, I can start afresh and build-up.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Suffering from cancer; I visited Mulago Cancer ward and witnessed people suffer in too much pain. Things like broken heart can be amended but not cancer.

What is your favorite occupation?

I always wanted to be a fashion designer.

What do you most value in your friends?

Honesty

Who are your favorite writers?

I am not a fan of any particular person but I love to read inspirational pieces.

Who is your hero of fiction?

I like Superman and how he comes in to rescue at the right time. I wish there were true supermen.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

I may model myself to Mother Theresa but I can't come even an inch to who she was and what she did.

What is your greatest regret?

I don't regret anything.

How would you like to die?

I want to die of old age on my bed with my grand children all looking and smiling at me.

What is your motto?

Always make sure you are climbing the right hill.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/backless-formal-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses

Return to me oh fondest love
as roses bid their buds to bloom
and all of nature springs to life
to wonder at the bluebirds tune

Return to me when sun is high
with warmth and golden sheen
to sit beside me for a while
beneath the evergreens

Return to me on Autumn winds
as blazing leaves decay
and place your precious heart with mine
in hope that it will stay.

Return to me while winter snows
ring in the seasons charms
for I have waited far too long
to be back in your arms.

Though time has passed I still hold on
my heart it never strays
It beats for you, oh fondest love
until my dying day.

They may remember my breakup because it kept coming up. Kept coming back. Some may think that my breakup was the thing that hurt the most last year. It wasn’t.

It hurt more to get my heart broken by somebody else.
It hurt more that I had to see her around every time I was around my friends.
It hurt that her name came up everywhere I went, as obscure as it was.
It hurt more that my fondest memories of last year weren’t with my former love, but with her.
It hurt more that I considered my masterpiece of a song to be one about her, and not about my former love.
It hurt more that gazing into her eyes I saw a myriad of puzzles to be solved and a seemingly endless, impossible maze that I wanted to travel in, but never got to.
It hurt more that I bottled these feelings in because I was in a relationship.
It hurt more, the nights I kept up, thinking about what if I gave it just a little more time.
It hurt more to think that maybe I made the wrong decision about who I loved.
It hurt more to rush into love like I did, and miss out on the one thing that may have been better.
It hurt more never to see her again.
It hurt more to forget her smile than my former love.
It hurt more that her laugh was one of the most beautiful sounds that I’ve forgotten.
It hurt more that I stayed up all night thinking more about her than my former love.
It hurt more to know maybe I fell in love with her more than I did my former love.
It hurt more to think about how much it must have hurt my former love to find out.
It hurt more to think how much I took from my former love, and how I threw her away in the end.
It hurt more to use the word threw away instead of broke up in that last sentence.
It hurt more that maybe a part of me still wishes things went differently
It hurt more to feel that wave of anguish to know she didn’t love me back
It hurt more to feel that feeling of defeat to think I tried so hard
It hurt more to feel nothing for my former love, and how guilty I should have felt but didn’t.
It hurt more to realize though, that through all of it, I wasn’t blameless. I had fault.
It hurt more than a thousand papercuts, cutting away, slowly at me. Taking bit by bit of myself.
It hurts most that my break up didn’t hurt me at all. It was her breaking my heart that hurt the most.

It stings now to know
That there’s a part of me that may still love her, wondering if she loved me back.
But now I’ll never know.

I wish you all the happeiness
I wanted for myself and more.
I wish you find that one person
You can appreciate and adore.
I wish you songbirds at dawn
And cool breezes at night
I hope all your fondest dreams
Will turn out to be just right.

If wishes were waterfalls
And dreams were butterflies
I would want them all for you
Unfolding before your eyes.
If love could make magic
I would say the secret words
And grant you everything
The moment they were heard.

I wish you romantic dinners
And walks along the river
Under twinkling skirts of stars
And long, loving talks together.
I wish the joys one finds in love
And being close to each other.
I wish you mutual respect
And that it goes on forever.

If wishes were waterfalls
And dreams were butterflies
I would want them all for you
Unfolding before your eyes.
If love could make magic
I would say the secret words
And grant you everything
The moment they were heard.

I wish you what I'm sure love is,
Which is that I want for you
That all the best should happen
And my wishes will come true.
I wish you all the best of life,
And the heaven it can be.
I wish wondrous days for you,
I just wish it were with me.

If wishes were waterfalls
And dreams were butterflies
I would want them all for you
Unfolding before your eyes.
If love could make magic
I would say the secret words
And grant you everything
The moment they were heard.

Attention class:
There's been a shift in our syllabus
There are some questions on my mind that warrant a new lessonplan: Does true love exist?
I will admit lately I've hypothesized that it's merely just a myth
Some wishful thinking from romantic half-wit heretics
So I'm assigning a soul mate science test
A pop quiz prophecy that could bind two of us together forever
Proving true love is suited for scientific vindication
If you respond to each question honestly
One trusty staple is capable of uniting this loose leaf love
Depending on your lead-based expressions
And their smudge-marked impressions
So please put your notebooks down
And pick your pencils up
Let's begin:

1. Is the beauty you possess easily represented in the thoughts you express?
Provide an ample sample size of your logic to suggest your loveliness works wonders.
2. Given that the fastest manned aircraft reached 4500 mph
If you spiraled down from the heavens at 9.8 m/s²
How long would it take for you to shatter record speed
And recognize that my arms are open to being your landing pad?
3. If your failures colored red and successes tinted blue
Became marbles piled high in mason jars
Would you let me embrace your entirety in the most worthy shade of purple?
4. Skin, rarely remembered, is the human body's largest *****.
Without caution, show me that your brain and heart
Are eager to become the king and queen of your anatomy.
That your organic vastness can infiltrate others' flesh majestically.
5. Think carefully. Who was the last man you kissed?
Are his lips worth enough for you to dismiss
A potential chance at creating unending bliss?
6. True or False: You would lie to me to spare a hurtful truth.
Provide evidence that you are comfortable revealing the undisputed details of your personal journal
Unraveling the spools of your most mysterious fibers.
7. Disprove Heartbreak Theory.
Show your work with mild-mannered mannerisms and sentimental illustrations.
Use crayons or colored pencils to emphasize your best intentions.
8. Chemistry is the study of the properties of matter.  
Using the periodic table of elementary emotions
Describe what matters most to you.
Remember to cite your sources of inspiration.
The inner workings of your engine that fuel your fondest explorations.
9. Fill in the blank spaces between my fingertips with your tenderness.
Is it a perfect fit?
If not, describe the characteristics possibly prohibiting this grip.
10. Cells are the smallest units of life.
Draw a diagram dissecting the little pieces of you
That belong in my possession at all times.
Include both strengths and vices.
Exhibit a sense of self-awareness that I can mimic
When I'm stuck inside my quicksand mind.

And one final reminder:
Remember to print your name legibly on the front page.
Failure to do so will result in catastrophe.
An unidentified masterpiece resulting in agony for you and I.
Practically reversing the critical proofs that your pen just described.
So let my eyes scan your signature with methodical joy.
And the curves of your cursive ink lines can become my mind's strongest ally.
Let me know you're willing to be known.
Because I need to know you're alive.

Twisted
and broken
Dancing
And limping
Your perfect puppet on strings,
Bowing
And
Bending
In time to your madness;
A tiny porcelain ballerina
Spinning on a pedestal,
As you orchestrate our final symphony.
My sweet,
Scary
Maestro of monsters,
My Conductor of Chaos
And pain,
I adore you-
My darlin,
My puddin.
Bleeding
and hopeful
Here I am,
Still,
By your side;
Your fondest hit
Your favorite toy to squeeze
(the life out of)
Your prisoner in love;
(Your good girl)
Begging for just a little more.
Heave me over the side
Again
Drown me in your molten insanity,
Push me under-
Just.
One.
More.
Time.
To feel the thrills,
The chills,
The danger;
The happiness
Of liberating manic laughter-
To feel the helpless despair
As I perform in your circus.
Here I am,
To beg a bullet
For these lips,
That praise your deeds,
And pray for release,
For a mutual destruction,
A final comedy written in blood.
I guess...
the joke is on me after all...
Right, Mr. J?

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have passed,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,
Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood’s cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

Sitting in the courtyard on a hot summer night,
Enjoying the breeze that caresses us both,
Sitting with a friend, the closest of close,
Is there something more in your eyes?

Sitting at Sonic,
Talking about feelings,
Divulging secret longings,
Finally admitting things we have hidden for so long,
An amazing first kiss.

Going to poker night at your friend’s house,
Finally being able to express our feelings openly,
You hold my hand,
They call me your girl, my heart explodes like a 4th of July fireworks finale!
You are an attentive wonderful boyfriend,
Even if just here in this safe place.

Driving around town,
Laughing, being, doing things together,
Seeing this town that I have lived in for many years in a new way,
Seeing everything, everywhere with you in a new way.

Walking through neighborhoods,
Taking in the architecture,
Sitting in the park,
Silent, but sharing so much,
Being told that we look like spring love.

Dining together, and journaling our meals together,
A long list of places yet to go together,
Looking for even more new places to explore together,
New experiences with you have always been magical.

Hiking in the mountains,
Standing in a meadow,
Looking out over the city that we share,
But that is keeping us away from each other,
So free here and now,
You stand behind me,
Your arms around me,
I lean back into you,
Praying that I could just melt into you.

Alone in your room,
Sharing all,
Sharing our most,
Exploring each other,
Melting into each other,
Nothing else in the world but you and me and these moment of bliss.

A birthday lunch,
A beautiful ring,
A promised future, now lost…
A beautiful day nonetheless,
A wonderful ever lasting memory,
No one can ever take it away from me.

Back to the courtyard,
4 Years later,
Cool breeze,
Secrets stifled,
Glances stolen at each other,
You love me and I Iove you,
But we have moved passed that now, we are friends.
Have you really moved passed it?

I don’t think that I successfully have.
I know that I do not want to.


© Misty Bishop-Martiss

I used to have 4 brothers
And loved them all the same
The eldest used us siblings
For where to lay the blame

Hoping reincarnation
Proves true after a while
Dan said his fondest wish was
Return an only child

Soon I arrived, his sister
Right after Dan turned 2
He fed me peanut butter
Until my face turned blue

Dan denied that he loved me
As kids did, once or twice
But he jumped in to save me
When I fell through the ice

Surviving eighteen months then
My baby crib moved on
I moved to the bottom bunk
My next brother was born

Named for our dad’s Commander
World War II not fearing
Ted was sent to Vietnam
Where he would lose his hearing

Neighbors once thought we were twins
Blond hair and Dad’s blue eyes
Family strife split us apart
Though close in age and size

He can’t hear but does read lips
That bomb, it took its toll
Seems no single moment’s joy
PTSD took hold

Next came Bill when I was 6
AKA “Sweet William”
Boundless joy and endless love
His broad smiles worth millions

When I loved chocolate ice-cream
That was his favorite, too
He is my son’s Godfather
His wise words helped me through

I have no clue what ended
Brotherly affection
Before 2 brothers died he
Cut off real connection

Sam was born prematurely
When I was twelve years old
Spent 5 months incubating
Before we took him home

Our father’s disappointment
Sam never went to college
Didn’t want to play football
Was seeking other knowledge

Sam learned how engines functioned
By disassembling cars
Made candles in the basement
An Eagle Scout-golf star

A heart of gold he suffered
Much doggerel and strife
Alcohol’s what dogged him till
Tragically took his life

Divided family members
I’m actor and spectator
Seeking to forge connections
Reunion instigator

Some gather for funerals
A wedding now and then
I mourn, alone, Dan and Sam
Lament what might have been

Hadn’t been able to finish this piece until I took a long vacation. I still have 2 living brothers, but neither responds to my overtures. One can't hear me, and the other is not speaking.  New Englanders are known for denial and take-it- to-the-grave-grudges.  I guess I really don't want to know why.

It is a crisp winter evening in Chicago, and children everywhere are finishing up a day filled with hot cocoa, wet mittens, and NO SCHOOL. A particular family enjoys the evening frolicking in the snow mounds in their front yard. Snow falls softly as a young girl sits on one of the mounds and watches the scene unfold; her family enjoying nature’s wonders. The trees in the yard become delicate, sparkling saplings as the snow falls lightly onto their branches. With yesterday’s snowmen in the yard and garland and twinkling lights strung from the porch railings, the house looks anticipant of Christmas morning. The eldest boy, clad in navy jacket and green pants, works on the finishing touches of his precious snow fort. His younger brother builds an equally satisfying fortress opposite him. Flakes are beginning to fall faster as the father of the family continues on with tedious task of shoveling the never-ending driveway. The snow continues to fall as the youngest daughter lies in the snow flapping her arms like a bird as she makes angels in the snow. As the brothers begin a rigorous snow battle, the youngest child waddles out of the house in a puffy coat, ginormous mittens, and way-too-big boots. He plops down onto the ground next to his sister, and tries imitating her flapping. Every now and then, a car will come by, and the young children pelt it with snowballs, and the driver, very annoyed, honks his horn profusely at them. As the girl watches her family take pleasure in the night, smelling lingering car exhaust and dinner, feeling flakes dust her face, she can’t help but wonder if this will be the one thing she remembers best about her childhood.

Cerulean;
How I shall never find myself
So fortunate an opportunity
As to see the clouds part.
But I still hope they do

It's hard to believe that forty seven years have passed since we picked our first Macintosh off that tangled orchard tree. Fall was the best time of year. We would hop into the old truck and scoot on down the road to the local farm. Together we'd place everything in order for a perfect picnic; sandwiches here, potato chips there. She'd be certain to leave the pickles in a special container cause that sour taste of dill always made me buckle. Forty seven years since we made our first fall adventure, can you believe it?

The autumn breeze always seemed to soften the light as it glowed upon her curly red hair. So young and full of life she was. It was always a sight to see her when she'd reach for an apple and a good ol' honey bee would come buzzing around. Hell, she'd start flailing her dainty fingertips and scrunch her nose, waving her scarf all around as if the bee would surrender. Those were the moments that I searched for. Those moments (I'd swear) she could stop the universe in a shade of gray. Her ability to get so **** mad made her look as cute as puppy who couldn't run as fast as it wanted. When those moments began to unfold before my eyes it appeared I had been deeply connected to the face of God. My heart would leap, Ah, I knew I'd love her forever.

There was one year which was so special to me, I've held it safe as one of my fondest memories. We had been out all night one fall evening. Our neighbors held a festive barn party complete with a hog roast with all the fixens. We danced until our feet hurt. I remember she wanted to leave early but I wasn't sure why. Being the gentleman that I was, I stayed with the one that brought me.

I popped the clutch and off we went leaving the music behind us. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary but then she reached over and gave me a little tap on the shoulder. She really had a way of getting my attention. "Pull over up here..." she said "down this gravel road!"

I shoulda known better. Shifting gears I made a careful right turn as the tires met with the thickly settled road. As soon the truck had made it fifty yards she opened that truck door and left me no choice but to stop! "What on earth are you doing?" I cried as she exited the vehicle and made her way past the headlights.

Before I could ask another question the drivers side door swung open. The moon must've been full that night cause I can recall light beams bouncing off her beautiful smile. She grabbed my hand and ran towards the forest. The trees lashed back against me as I chased her through the thick of it. I had no idea that the orchard would be on the other side.

Waiting like a tractor for an overdue oil change was a the most romantic thing I witnessed. My pretty girl sure did surprise me. I could have never guessed. Spread out right before me was a midnight picnic. We sat underneath that tree and laughed till the coyotes chased us home. That was the first night we ever made love. Real love...the lasting kind and Lord have mercy, I'll never forget it!

It's been ten years since she went up with the Angels. Every fall I can't help but reminisce of that night we left the barn dance- it's where it all began, but I have yet to return to our spot.

Every time I think about it I can smell the remnants of her homemade apple pie and it brings tears to my eyes. Today, something told me to muster up the courage and get down to the Orchard, it was as if she had tapped me on the shoulder again.

Different it was making my way down there alone. A lot of the landscape has changed and they've added a few things. I'd have to admit, the smell of the autumn breeze still rings true to my memories of my her as I approached the Apple Orchard.

Heavy hearted I headed out on the farm. It was different to see all the children with their families, that used to be us. But the sound of their laughter quickly replaced my own memories as I made my way down the hill to our very first apple picking tree.

There it stood as pretty as an apple tree could be. Her leaves appeared to blow to the sound of the wind, her branches looked like they were smiling. Glancing up I continued to walk closer and I couldn't believe what I saw. Was it true?

Slowly I made my way around the trunk of that twisted orchard tree just to be sure I wasn't imaging something, but I'll be ******, every apple on that tree was gone.

The moment I realized it was true I knelt down and dug my hands in the dirt. A blustery tear rolled on past my lips. I clenched my fist and lifted it to my heart. The moment was too much, I had taken too long to get there. Just as I turned around and decided that I should go- a busy little honey bee flew right past the tip of my eyelashes. I stumbled back and reluctantly began swatting at an almost invisible contender.

Jumping all around like a **** fool I was shoutin' and cussin' going off like a firecracker. All of a sudden the honey bee flew from sight and when I realized that I was so **** worked up, I began to laugh.

You see, it was that sweet little honey bee that made it all possible. It came buzzin' by like a heated stroke of lightening and changed everythin'! That's the moment I realized, if it weren't for the things that made us upset, the moments that brought on grief and heartbreak, perhaps we wouldn't have any reflection on the things that made us happy.

That apple tree may not have had a single Macintosh left for my pickin' but it taught me that my wife had planted enough seeds of love and hope in my heart that I didn't need no apple- just the memories that went with it.

young lovers enthralled
in a passion that can
melt the deepest
Alpine snow cap

announce an intention
to join as one
till death do you part

the elders smile
at the audacity of
your grandiloquent
proclamation

youthful optimism
expressing pollyannish
sentiments born
of wistful hope

yet to learn the rules
of the vows of matrimony
and the endless sweet labor
required  to keep it alive and well

thus i pass on  this sage advice

when the baby cries at night
when the car won't start
when the rent bill is due
and you find yourself
a bit short

i wish you love...

when the cupboard is bare
and the desire to satiate
swelling hunger pangs
is overwhelming

i wish you love…

when you find yourself travelling
through roads that are
unfamiliar and foreboding

when you are hopelessly lost
in the darkest reaches
of the Black Forest

i wish you love…

as you grow as individuals
straining your relationship

when in laws become outlaws
and the pulls and pushes
of family and friends becomes
unfamiliar and misunderstood

i wish you love…

when resentments and insecurities
conspire to undermine trust

when greener pastures
pose a mirage of better things

i wish you love…

when oversight and neglect
leave you empty

when the luster of the
edelweiss bloom fades

when exasperation melts
the Alps greatest glacier
flooding everything you have

when the untended furnace
doesn't fire and the last
log is consumed

be patient
be diligent
be expectant
be kind

hold on to it
believe in it
practice it
trust it

may it bind you
in a perfect circle

and all your fondest
hopes and wishes
will be yours

i wish you love…

Stevie Wonder
Signed Sealed Delivered

Salutation for
Engagement Party
Maxine Lintel and
Glendon McCallum
Munich
11/29/13
jbm

i've spent my whole life
searching for an escape route
that has never appeared
at the fondest of times
but ******* it, i
will paint that sign myself,
in the rusted blood seeping
from my heart,
if it means this will end

My dad and I would spend sunny afternoons
riding our bicycles
through my suburban neighborhood.
We would ride down my street
until we reached the sidewalk that diverged into two paths
and neither of them were less traveled by
as we always ended up taking both.
The right path leads to the small waterfalls
just past the basketball court
where my brothers and their friends
would play pick-up games.
Riding across the tiny bridges is a moment of brief bliss
as the sounds of the water rushing reaches your ears
and drowns out everything else.
We’d maneuver to the giant lake
filled with brightly colored kois
and serene storks standing out on the rocks.
Following the curve of the water
we would end up in a private neighborhood
where the blacktop is so shiny and smooth
that your wheels glide across the entire street.
And you can go fast
since it’s silent
and no cars come barreling down the road.
Somehow, we’d end up at that beginning sidewalk
and now it’s time to go to the left.
Over here, there’s a small playground
where my dad would chase my siblings and me
and I would hide in the tube of the slide.
We could spend hours there
on our spaceship
trying to outsmart Darth Vader and the dark side.
Just past the park, we’d reach the stretches of green belts
lacing their way through the streets
and the bushes I flew into
when first learning how to ride my bicycle.
We'd take a left after the dip in the sidewalk
ending up back on our street
and deciding that it’s getting late
once the sky turns pink and orange.
We’d end up back at the cookie-cutter house
that I don’t live in anymore
but part of it is still mine.
I wonder if the kitchen is still red
and if the guest bathroom still smells like lemons.
I contemplate knocking
only to remember that there’s a new family living there
making memories in our pool
and playing in the basement.
I smile, hoping that maybe
they will ride the same sidewalks I grew up on.
I paste these memories into a poem
but there is really no need
because remembering the twists and turns
of my old neighborhood
is just like riding a bike.

The lark ascends
on light wings

Taking flight toward
a heavenly home

It lingered here
but a short while

Certain of the course
she must go

A delicate beauty
and playful grace

Her twittering eyes
revealed

Deep trust for love
and sturdy branch

Of her verdant
earthly home

We reveled in her
abundant joy

She fed our spirits
and fondest hopes

Her gossamer wings
a fragrant breath

Her heart angels
hath divinely blessed

The lark is light!
The lark is life!
Her song forever young

The lark is kind
The lark is Thine
The lark is winging home

LAP
Godspeed Beloved
12/20/08

YES, DELIA loves! My fondest vows are blest ;
Farewel the memory of her past disdain ;
One kind relenting glance has heal'd my breast,
And balanc'd in a moment years of pain.

O'er her soft cheek consenting blushes move,
And with kind stealth her secret soul betray ;

Blushes, which usher in the morn of love,
Sure as the red'ning east foretells the day.

Her tender smiles shall pay me with delight
For many a bitter pang of jealous fear ;
For many an anxious day, and sleepless night,
For many a stifled sigh, and silent tear.

DELIA shall come, and bless my lone retreat ;
She does not scorn the shepherd's lowly life ;
She will not blush to leave the splendid seat,
And own the title of a poor man's wife.

The simple knot shall bind her gather'd hair,
The russet garment clasp her lovely breast :
DELIA shall mix amongst the rural fair,
By charms alone distinguish'd from the rest.

And meek Simplicity, neglected maid,
Shall bid my fair in native graces shine :
She, only she, shall lend her modest aid,
Chaste, sober priestess, at sweet beauty's shrine !

How sweet to muse by murmuring springs reclin'd ;
Or loitering careless in the shady grove,
Indulge the gentlest feelings of the mind,
And pity those who live to aught but love !

When DELIA's hand unlocks her shining hair,
And o'er her shoulder spreads the flowing gold,
Base were the man who one bright tress would spare
For all the ore of India's coarser mold.

By her dear side with what content I'd toil,
Patient of any labour in her sight ;
Guide the slow plough, or turn the stubborn soil,
Till the last, ling'ring beam of doubtful light.

But softer tasks divide my DELIA's hours ;
To watch the firstlings at their harmless play ;
With welcome shade to screen the languid flowers,
That sicken in the summer's parching ray.

Oft will she stoop amidst her evening walk,
With tender hand each bruised plant to rear ;
To bind the drooping lily's broken stalk,
And nurse the blossoms of the infant year.

When beating rains forbid our feet to roam,
We'll shelter'd sit, and turn the storied page ;
There see what passions shake the lofty dome
With mad ambition or ungovern'd rage :

What headlong ruin oft involves the great ;
What conscious terrors guilty bosoms prove ;
What strange and sudden turns of adverse fate
Tear the sad ****** from her plighted love.

DELIA shall read, and drop a gentle tear ;
Then cast her eyes around the low-roof'd cot,
And own the fates have dealt more kindly here,
That blest with only love our little lot.

For love has sworn (I heard the awful vow)
The wav'ring heart shall never be his care,
That stoops at any baser shrine to bow :
And what he cannot rule, he scorns to share.

My heart in DELIA is so fully blest,
It has not room to lodge another joy ;
My peace all leans upon that gentle breast,
And only there misfortune can annoy.

Our silent hours shall steal unmark'd away
In one long tender calm of rural peace ;
And measure many a fair unblemish'd day
Of chearful leisure and poetic ease.

The proud unfeeling world their lot shall scorn
Who 'midst inglorious shades can poorly dwell :
Yet if some youth, for gentler passions born,
Shall chance to wander near our lowly cell,

His feeling breast with purer flames shall glow ;
And leaving pomp, and state, and cares behind,
Shall own the world has little to bestow
Where two fond hearts in equal love are join'd.

Let’s pretend we were made
To be the two of us together
Let’s pretend not just today,
But tomorrow too, and forever.
Let’s pretend some cupid guy
Shot his arrow at both our hearts.
Let’s pretend we had no choice
That some magic made it start.

Let’s pretend there is nobody
On this earth but we two.
That neither of us has work
Or any chores we must do.
Let’s act the same as if
We were just two small kids
And build some loving memories
Of the fun things we did.

Let’s pretend that our love
Is all we will ever really need
And let this game of our hearts
And souls happily proceed.
And let’s pretend the two of us
Get to make all the rules
And people who don’t agree
Are just ordinary boring fools.

Let’s pretend there’s nothing we
Need to worry ourselves about
And that any problems that occur
We two can work them out.
Let’s pretend this is a world
Like the one in our fondest dreams
And see if we can make it be
Precisely as magical as it seems.

The last time I saw you, you were standing there at the gate, watching me walk away  
I was trying to look cool, like nostalgia in motion
That’s a difficult thing to pull off when you’re constantly looking back 
You were smiling and waving, like it was all gonna be alright
I secretly hated you for that  
Everything in my being screamed at me to turn around, to run back to you
I wanted to take your hand in mine and pull you out of there like Wayne did to Cassandra…
Only I didn’t

I did my duty
I turned around one last time at the end of the longest hallway in the world and stole one last look
Blinking back the burning sensation in my eyeballs and the tightness in my throat
And then I plodded on
Just like I was supposed to
I had a stabbing pain in my gut like things would never be the same again
Like the WE we were was dying and going away forever  
At the time I dismissed that sharp unbearable thought as sentimental weakness
The sloshy musings of an admittedly overdramatic youth  
Never would’ve guessed my gut knew so much more than my thirsty brain
With its linear logic and high powered deductive reasoning
I told myself we’d be together again soon
I told myself to focus on the task at hand, and you’d be the reward waiting for me at the end of it all
The bright white light at the end of my long dark tunnel  
I told myself you’d be the sunshine on the other side of the mountain
Knowing somewhere deep down it wasn’t true  
Knowing somewhere deep down, that the WE we were
Now existed only in my fondest memories
Only in the dark moments I would occasionally indulge on the cool side of my pillow
I turned around
And walked out of your life