none of you understand what i’m saying is i’m not like any of you never married never parented children never owned real estate don’t believe in government the law hate rich people not afraid to lose everything risk life for the chance at a better life yes i graduated from Philadelphia dental school practiced medicine several years dashing handsome cordial Georgia physician yet knowing i was dying then of tuberculosis i wanted to feel alive know danger taste possibilities ******* greedy ranch and railroad barons all you cotton gin grist mill moguls loud mouthed Yankee carpetbaggers bounty hunters self-righteous snake oil preachers with your fearful farmstead flocks what the hell do you think Big Nose Kate and me were doing in Tucson why i risked my life at Tombstone’s OK Corral i’ll tell you why because we were desperate beyond your comprehension long-drawn-out careworn hours twisted in desperation insufferably plodding nights so desperate Kate relieved me daily yet in back of each our minds we understood we were both slaves to ancient unfair corrupt economic system that provided enough whiskey to cope desperate for money allegiance shelter frantic enough to face loaded guns aimed firing at me it was hell on earth glaring sun beating down desert dust blowing burning eyes bullets cutting everywhere 1880’s revolvers lacking accuracy even with expert gunsmith modifications young men riddled with bleeding gunshot wounds in 6 years i was dead age 36 hey Kate was no cakewalk she was a ***** who knew how to play me flirting charming admiring exaggerating her strange Hungarian lust encouraging provoking prostituting on her knees back tummy fingers mouth managing somehow to become acquainted with Arizona Governor George Hunt then surviving to age 90 you modern day sleepers who read this rambling cower at airport security passively submit to insidious militarizing culture invasively inspecting camera scanning for cuticle scissors nail file weapons all ludicrous absurdist theatre while real bad guys can easily tape 3 McDonald’s plastic knives together or ball point pen pierce pilots passengers throat arteries skyjack planes hijack bus trains you are no safer than you ever were before Homeland Security Czars foreign wars where we don’t belong riding has grown so weary courage ruthless longing vexing generating entire industry of airport security corporate mall tariff duty free shops inflated restaurant menu prices liter bottle of water $4.99 welcome to America **** me now or **** me later who cares what i look like what i wear if i’m dry shaven smell like goat if i cough up chunks of lung spit tuberculosis germs on polished floors just so long as i pay the toll fee and don’t go shooting off my mouth

Life is a writhing swirl who's information is meaningful but the information does not exist for the purpose of being comprehended so it is only taken in and interpreted as well or as usefully as the perceptive devices.
Nothing significant has a vendetta against the individual beings' happiness or success, though beings may appear as food or some other form of fulfillment to other beings. Beings will view other beings as their appetites would view any other thing. No one can exist in the view of another. Don't expect others to view you as you do. You are NOT their center, only your own.

Everybody thinks everybody else is insufferably selfish and everybody is right.

Love is interesting though. More on that after more data is collected.

Took the bus home.
Paid my $2.50,
no special discount.

Spent my day selling my wares,
But did not sell enough to
Pay the daily rent,
Hell, to even pay for lunch.

Gave up my seat for sweet,
Baby-child laughed at my
Gallantry, I think,
For his exclamations were
Of the shrieking pleasurable variety.

Saw Macbeth last night,
In the end, he dies,
Same as when I saw it
Last year.

Le plus ca change
The Frenchies say,
Wonder if they still wear berets
And say "Le Weekend?"

In the winter,
The buses are overheated,
So winter coats become furnaces.
I am rendered,
Ash and smoke.
Nothing new there too.

Missed my stop
Writing this,
Happened before,
Hope it happens again.

Came  home to the customary
What's new,
So I said
Not too much
But,
Somebody decided that ole
Poem I wrote two years on,
Should be the
Poem of the Day.

That's sweet, my love ,
You surely will be
Insufferably happy and
Impossible to live with
for at least the next
five minutes.

So take the trash out,
Before we leave,
Then pick a place to dine,
For not a thing in the fridge to eat.

So to the compactor,
I strode, thinking Shakespeare
Didn't have to do this, I'll bet,
But started smiling,
Ear to ear,
A ***** eating
Big ole
Grinning,
Nonetheless!

Thinking,
The question is,
How does it feel,
This poem of the day
Accolade,
The answer,
of course!

It feels, like,
I am,

**I am just like {you, man}

Neither one of them knew when the rivalry began. It was certainly in their infancy.
Rachel Huntington was twenty  a star scholar at Oxford university.
Matthew fotheringham was the same age also a star scholar  
They excelled in the study of English literature having read all of the aincent and modern classics in high school.
It was known that saint Hilda's college at Oxford regarded Rachel as  the most  gifted student they had seen for years.
In his group the same was said for Matthew.
They shared the same advanced literature class and the tension between then was palatable.
She would put forward a proposition on Shakespeare repeated usage of
Iambic pentameter.
And Matthew would destroy her concept with a detailed analysis of his works
Have you been  cribbing with Cole's notes he would add in disdain.
Rebecca hated him calling him insufferably conceited and a total buffoon.
He once went to her dorm to pick up an ancient script she had borrowed from the library the only copy.
He phoned from the hall shall I come up to your room
And pick it up.
Rachel shouted No!
I will bring it down to you.
You are never to come up to my dorm.
It's not that I wouldn't allow a man up here
But if anyone were to see you leaving and got the wrong idea.
I don't want them to think I have no taste and low standards in boyfriends.
And that's how it went on.

Then the literature guilds competition had been announced
Schoolers from all over Europe were to present their essays of no less than 25 thousand words and the winner would receive 25 thousand guineas but more importantly that opened the door to the chairs of literature all through the continent.

The rivalry escalation was at fever pitch.
Matthew worked  75. Hour weeks on his essay
Rachelle kept up with him never wasting a single moment.
The class bookmaker has had narrow odds on the winner it one of these two.

They went to the presentation hall and entered the book sized essays sealed in manilla envelopes
Rachel quipped you don't have a chance you couldn't copy mine.
Matthew said I hope they don't use the new plagiarism software you have probably stole yours from the internet.
I already have made plans for my winnings he bragged.
What a good plated pocket protector and  a girl friend you just add air too.
Matthew was hurt
Particularly at the insult that he had a blow up plastic girlfriend.
He remembered humor was the best defence it showed they could not hurt you.
I only bought her for driving on the diamond lanes on the highway.
Anyhoo nothing happened between us until that last night of term
When we drank too much wine.
Rachel walked off in disgust
As he yelled so all could here
She's better in bed than you will ever be .

It was two weeks to the announcement of the contest winners.
No use worrying about it Matthew said
He went for a long evening stroll by the river.
As he turned on the river bend he saw Rachel
She was crying say beneath a huge willow tree.

For once he did not have a smart quip or an insult.
He walked to her and sat down next to her.
Why are you weeping Rachel he asked gently.
She had never ever heard his voice so soft.
My father died last night. She sobbed.
It occurred to Matthew he knew nothing of her life.
I am so sorry what happened
He was the clergyman at Saint Monica's Anglican Church
He had cancer and never let me know.
It had taken all his savings to get me through Oxford.
And he did not want me to lose focus.
Then she wept freely
Mathew held her close to him she wept on his his shoulder
His fingers gentle touched her reddish suborn hair.
It was soft she smelt of lavender soap it was nice.
I ...I have to go to Stowe  on the wold tomorrow for the funeral.
I shall take you there
Do you have a car she asked.
Yes I have a twenty year old MG convertible. My dad bought me when I got into Oxford.
It was arranged he picked her up and off to the funeral they went .
He never felt as comfortable or comforting in all his life.
He was seeing her in a new light after all the stupid years.
They arrived at the old vicarage
Mrs Evans the housekeeper hugged them both
It's about time you got your pretty nose out of those old dusty books
And got yourself a boyfriend.
The weird part was neither one of them corrected Mrs Evans.

The funeral took place
And they set back along the old country roads to the university.
They talked about literature art posts and writers.
Then the old engine conked out.
Miles from anywhere
You need to go get petrol she said.
But there's no station between her and Oxford
The phone signal was not reaching them.
We have to sleep in the car for the night.
Rachel said as long as you don't get any ideas.
You are not my type.
He was going to tell her she was his type but said nothing.
It was freezing in the night Rachel was shivering
He took off his coat and jacket and put them over her in the back seat
As he shivered frozen in the front seat.
In the early morning they woke up
She stepped out of the car and stretched
Matthew was on one knee in front of her
What are doing she asked?
What does it look like I am doing ?
I am proposing that you become my wife.
Never! never! never !
After all the insults you have laid upon me.
Well I'm I'm sorry
Not good enough she shouted.

Do you have the guts to make a get with me Matthew asked.?
Her reddish hair answered the challenge
Just try me.
OK if I  win the award you will become my wife.he said.
If I  win you get lost and marry the blow up lady.she countered.
Well the challenge was a tough one
If she did not accept it it was saying he was smarter than her and she knew it.
If she accepted it was the opposite.
OK you have a deal.

A week later Matthew was working in the library
The prize winners are being posted on the notice board.
He felt a gasp in his chest
As he reached the crowd of students he saw Rachel
She even had a trace of make-up on she was now
Getting to look beautiful to him.
Good luck rachel he whispered I hope you win.
She knew he meant it but she remembered the wager.
She said softly I hope it's you that wins Mathew.
A young woman rushed out of the crowd
Rachelle you won you won.
Mathews heart sank
Congratulations Rachel I am so happy for you.
She felt a tear selling in her eye
Mathew where are you going
You told me to go And marry my send away lady that you just add air too
If I lost the bet you won Rachel.
And her heart sank in her chest.
Then the young woman saw him
Matthew congratulations you won.
She showed him a copy of the winners notice.
It had a note
In all the years of the competition we have never had two such magnificent essays
The adjudicator's were unable to mark one better than the other
We have shared the prize to two winners for the very first time.
Rachel held Mathew code and kissed him fully and hard. Not caring who was watching. He kissed her back
The crowd were astonished their tied was legendary at Oxford.


Two years later.
Matthew strolled in the park with the twins and his beloved wife Rachel.
She had married him a week after the award ceremony at Oxford.
It was said in the coffee room that the university had never had two professors as much in love as them they were now teaching in the English department and we're already in competition for their tenure.
But they never spent a moment appart.

He picked up the twins and shouted his love for Rachel on the top of his voice.
The evening breeze picks up the perfume of the fallen leaves.
Rachel smiled at him and whispered softly I love you too dearest.
She felt him slip into that private room in her heart that she always saved for her soulmate
As he entered the room holding their two babies.
She locked the door behind him with the only key that existed.
And then she threw  it into the dense woodlands of Oxfordshire
Never to found again.

-First Date-

Shirt goes on. Shirt comes off. Wriggle into jeans. Bend knees. No jeans. Maybe the newish skirt? Loose dress? Bearing in mind it’s a nightclub, I close my eyes in a quick bid to channel my inner Oracle for foresight on how to dress myself appropriately for the occasion. Twelve years ago I went on my first “date”, yet I’ve Benjamin Buttoned one of the first skills I’ve learned- once so bold, I’ve since regressed- now so perplexed with clothing, in wonder at the texture of colours, the worn-mama of a Technicolor sock orphanage, unable to wear a sweater without wearing every memory woven within. Wool makes my hippocampus itch even more than my skin. Stumbling around my room like a strange toddler-giant, I harvest outfits from my floor, assess, and toss back down into my unapologetically red **** carpet. It came with the house, unlike me. I should have been downstairs 5 minutes ago. Boy’s razor has stopped whirring and all I can hear is the soft swish of my own rummaging, punctuated by the immensely dear and clumsy strumming of my guitar as he patiently waits. A basic four-chord pop progression, and then the bones of a Radiohead song I taught him months ago when we were Just Friends and I was simply the older sister of his best pal from undergrad. Strictly off-limits, and so we grew close in the plainest, most innocent of ways, letting our insufferably weird senses of humor and quirky authentic selves hang out like big bellies over unbuttoned pants. He laughed at all my jokes and I became addicted to the sound. In spite of my five left-arms I tried my damndest to learn Ultimate when he invited me to his league just so we had another excuse to spend our Sundays together. How suddenly and beautifully it changed, very late one night and as naturally as if we had been together for months and the only oblivious parties were us. How fitting now that we should have our first date with my favourite musician, an artist who we had bonded over in our early days.

Unless, of course, I take so long to get dressed that we miss it. I abide by Murphy’s Law as I don my original ensemble and scramble down the stairs with my hands open in apology. Boy is lying on the couch with a button-down plaid shirt and a clean face, a stunning picture of leisure even though we are late. He smells magnificently fresh and I stifle the urge to cough out the butterflies that tickle my throat. Soon we are in a car and the city glides by like a watercolour backdrop, darkened and intensified by the rain. Finding weekend parking on Granville Street is a trick and I feel my driving-nerves swirling about with infatuation for my date and my unbelievable excitement to hear Kishi Bashi and his magical violin live, creating a swamp-water of adrenaline that intoxicates me. I probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel at this point. A side street holds the space for the vehicle and we stumble out into the glorious fresh and chilly spring evening to The Venue. We share smiles and quiet stumblings through conversations that feel suddenly new as we dog-paddle the waters of What We Are Now (What Are We Now?) Normally this would fill me with anxiety, but there is a warmth and earnestness to his electric blue eyes that arrest my fear. I am floating. He is floating. We are red balloons attached by a string to each other and everything about this moment feels buoyant and filled with light, each quick step up the busy, wet sidewalk seems a little freer of gravity. With the seamless quality of a dream-montage our surroundings change and we are inside the bar. It is dark and the scene has been set by a subtle smoke machine that beckons people closer within an otherworldly fog. The lighting is nautical, a deep and dreamy pallet of purples, teals, sapphires that are opaque in the smoke- thick, sliceable beams from the ceiling that rotate lazily through the bar. I wonder out loud at how gorgeous they are and Boy agrees as we marvel at the watery beauty of the frozen fireworks around us. He buys us beer and the bottle is very cold, juxtaposed with the warmth my free hand finds as it punctuates our conversations with a magnetism to his arm, his side, like a bird testing out the tree it hopes to nest in. The bitter, hoppy fizz cuts through the mint in my mouth and I am purring, utterly content. As the minutes pass more and more people appear in singles and doubles and groups. Some are dressed in spandex and skin- ready to dance and flirt, others in heavy layers and caps, looking suspiciously like they had brought their knitting right with there with them. The best music draws out all types of people.

Suddenly I am arrested by the presence of a slight Japanese man, hair spiked up in an edgy bedhead and wearing a sand-coloured suit and bowtie who says “excuse me” as he passes in front of us like a common mortal, just some other dude of average height and appearance and not the music god whose albums have become a part of my blood. Boy catches my shock and follows my laser eyes to the passing man, before exclaiming: “No- no, that isn’t? Was that...?!” With my empathic affirmation I allow my knees to buckle, one third for comedic effect, one third because I am literally star-struck, and one third for the delicious slump into my stunning companion’s arms. It is Hallowe’en. It is Valentine’s Day. It is Christmas. “I’m dying!” I laugh, “I’m literally dying, I’m dying- this is too much, too much- I’m dead!” Boy laughs, his shy voice like a cozy bell and he kisses me firmly, purposefully, dominating my senses with his heat and fresh-smell and endorphins. He grins as he pulls away, shaking his head at me- “No. You’re alive. You’re so alive.” We smile in helpless excitement at each other. “Besides, I think he totally looked at you” he teases. My brain literally can’t process this and I gasp at him to stop. The lights dance more quickly and the man and his violin are on the stage. People are cheering and the room thrills in anticipation. The speakers are so loud and I don’t care, I am hungry for the bass that pulses up through my feet and entrains with my heartbeat. Kishi Bashi introduces himself and my brain stops. Boy’s arm is around me and for the first time in years I am full of an innocent, earnest sensation that I had left for false or even dead. I could almost weep for the joy of it.
Oh hello, will you be mine? I haven’t felt this alive in a long time... my lips move soundlessly with the song I had shown Boy casually months before (“this is my all-time favourite, you’ve gotta check it out”) In our makeshift guitar lessons he had assured me that he would learn this song for me, just to show off how good he was getting- a small jest that left me spinning for nights in sleepless analysis of what that could mean and if he felt the same way about me after all.

I read the signs, I haven’t been this in love in a long time... and I feel Boy’s chest move in a sigh and he draws slightly closer within the chorus so that we are cocooned in the blue and purple and heartwrenching sweep of the violin loops. The crowd sways but we are very still. I notice that my hand is in his and the imperceptible, feathery stroke of his thumb along my palm is as loud as the speakers. Boy was right. I feel this moment tattoo upon my bones, a picture that I will trace over with my mind again and again as time stops and stretches, bending the continuum into an impossible possibility of falling in love and realizing it is for keeps. That no matter how the rest unfolds, this first date, this moment, knew true happiness and belonging in what it means to be

alive.

I am unaffected now, I just want to go on
it doesn't matter to me if to you it seems I've forgone

All I want to say is, I am game, I am alive
just bring it on.

After falling insufferably
and getting up invincibly
I don't call myself strong
cause that would be wrong

**I am just fearless
so I dream of flying featherless.

Human Love,
When you come to eat the rations of my heart,
remember, then, that starving is an art;
that to consume would be to ****--a crime;
that to exhume this cherry seed of mine
will drain me of a blood as thin as grape juice;
that in time, I will mourn my stolen-***** fruit.
-Ocean

            ------

Ocean,
You speak unto your seedling self, child.
You are weak--we are weak.  No mild
measure of halfway self-control can live
in mental habitat which exists to give
and only to give.  Your fluids will seep
and you'll be unable even to weep.
-Earth
            ---
Obtuse Earth,
Stop your assaulting me with these words.
Stop your quiet screaming, this dirge
which comes under guise of gentility--
insufferably loud, however creatively.
I never addressed you, ugly whisperer.
I never addressed you, nuissance, stranger.
-Ocean
            ---
Stubborn Ocean,
Do not be foolish!  Listen, girl.
Spurn him now with resolve; lest how
can dignity you preserve in any small
amount?  He doesn't love you at all.
And knowing that, you gave me address:
indeed, you have addressed yourself.
-Earth

            ------

Love,
Were that I could say it's so,
I would not give this room to grow.
But oh, if I do hold it back
then infinitely I should retract
into myself.  So speak or speak not,
but if so, speak now, for I am distraught.
-Ocean

I have a lot of insecurities and self doubt
There are a lot of things that I don’t particularly love about myself

The way that I would second guess most of the decisions I made
The way that I used to prowl about,
and devour every man that made me feel like a ******* without pay
I often times sit and ponder about how insufferably
rich I could have been, if only I had been using my ****** head

These insecurities and self doubt,
They live in me like the blood that pumps through my veins

It’s not as though I've lost my pride
Or the emptiness I feel deep inside
It’s like a blade, without the sharp tip
plunging into my heart
And the tears swirl beautifully down the drain
disappearing, and turning into a drought
A river bled dry, of all it's renowned glory
and distasteful self perpetuating doubt

The fruits of my labor are not regrets that I wish to take back
Rather lessons that I've learned
While stumbling along the wrong side of the tracks
© 2013 Christina Jackson

In this drafty bedside cavern
I lay with my feet up against the wall
tap tap tap
Held up over my hard head
Resting against the hard ground
Back here, where my pillow is my headstone
This palace is a burden,
Utterly insufferably forgiving.

Fantasy hits the ceiling
A dream shot from my mind
CRACK
Moonlight shines through the cave's newborn fissures
Useless to me
Uselessly groveling under shadowy sheets of sky  
I need this sterile fluorescent light.

It dances across my face
pitter patter pitter patter
It drops into my eyes,
Falls into the chasm between my lips
Cold and reeking of rot
Cold and tasting of an invasive species of mildew
I swallow, choking back tears
I eat it
It eats back.

This OCD
It's killing me
I'm a bit dead already
(But I won't die)

A normal day
I saw a spot on the glass
I cleaned it once to sanitize
Don't know what touch came to my mind
I voice in my head I can't comprehend
I wasn't sure of myself
So I cleaned it a second time
3rd time out of doubt
4th time to maintain my sanity
15th time it was insanity
And I still thought that the glass wasn't cleaned
In that moment I became diseased

I heard these voices constantly
Dictating me,giving decrees
Things I didn't think about
Now so hard to live without
Thinking of them

Intrusive thoughts
Intruders
Included
Such apparitions
It haunts me still
And they wouldn't leave
(I begged and begged and begged)
Such thoughts
I could die
(But I wouldn't )
I felt like the worst man alive
Was I bad
Or was I mad
It made me insufferably sad

A spot a speck
A fallen drop
Rendered me paralyzed
And I carried out rituals
Just to have some respite
I cried inside
Most difficult to fight
To win with your own mind

Internal demons
Killing me
Using me as their device
Too frightened what would others think
An academic boy
Being possessed
I didn't utter a single word
Until I was caught
It was too much
I was obsessed,compelled and disordered

I don't know why I did things
I just felt disgusted
By the spot the speck
Real and imagined
I doubted everything
Even things I did seconds ago
And made crazy theories
Of how that speck would **** me slow
Rationality thrown out of window
Lady Macbeth why won't you go

I confided
Couldn't bear
Thankfully
My parents were there
They couldn't understand
Why I was acting
Such
Over silly things
But it was real to me
It mattered too much

I searched the web
To find the cure
But thing I read
Made me more
And more scared
Was I forever impaired

I went to the psychiatrist
He fed me with some medicines
I would be lying if I say they didn't help me
But my real fight was with the demons inside me
The thoughts
Be gone
I beg to you be gone
I to again become the master of my life

Make your mind stronger still
So what if speck landed on you
It won't be the end of the world
Boy gather will
Said mrs psychologist

I tried it was hard
To be exposed yet prevent reaction
Be obsessed and prevent the compulsion
I had panic attacks
And emotional outburst
Yet I feel
Slowly but surely I am getting better

Thank God my family was so considerate
I feel for those less fortunate

Mental health is all too real
And first step to cure it all
Is to talk(please please for God's sake talk)

The most beautiful maiden
Bears dismal mannerisms
That are perpetually incurable.
The most inviting thing
About a spiritless ******
Is the inexorable flame
In her eyes.
She fondles her necklace
And closes her eyes and
Swears not to smile.
She says,
“This one is fatal, and
Forever. I will not be saved,”
Calmly and remains lull.
Why is it that
The most memorable romance
Is a crumbled heart that cannot be fixed,
But cannot be forgotten and
It is insufferably brutal
But it is a flower to the eyes.
An enormous negation,
Yet pure substantiation,
A correct falsehood.
So swollen and senseless,
A crumpled letter
She fingers with those perfect hands
That she reads over and over
But it never makes any sense.

A husband -> a wronged wife

"My dear take a chair
Your affair is unfair
I can't stand
A suffocating air
This way you and I
Could no longer continue
A loving pair
Soon to my parents
I must repair!
How come for love of a ****
A marital vow
You thwart? "

This way since
You decided me desert
For what I did spurred
By transient lust
Chagrin my soul has hit.
As usual in deep slumber
When I extend my hand
To ascertain whether
You have slept sound
And stir you up
So as we sleep entwined
Yet get awake to a tragedy stark
That I but draw a blank
My heart indeed
Incessantly bleed
From the loss it incurred
Your obeisance and love divested.

If you can't find it in your heart
My folly to forget
Forgive me my dear
For without you near
My life turns insufferably sour.

A wronged wife—>A husband

After your body you befouled
And proved a down to earth cad,
After your spirits perfidy you debased
Impudently you demand
As before I should you hold
An esteemed husband.
Indeed this I will not!
For rancor laden my heart
Bleed incessant
It mustn't!
Away to my parents I fled
For you failed to abscond
After what you did.
'Once bitten twice shy'
Forgive you how could I?

A husband—>A wronged wife

Your forgiveness but
Nothing depurate
The blot
In your eyes
Down me brought.
I hope
Forgiveness is the least
Your impeccable heart
Me could grant.
Even the ocean of tears
I wept
Whitewash me still not
My dear there is a second
Man goes wild
And commits a deed
He condemns absurd,
My perfidy to nothing but
To this folly could be imputed.

Man is prone to err
So you should consider
What matters is his bid
Improprieties away to clear.
So my dear
Give me a chance second
To prove, you loving husband.
Your forgiveness will be a credit
That surely you catapult
To ensconce
In the apex of my heart.
A forgiving personality
Is a virtuous quality
Besides your heart
Me 'love' that taught
Which is also on me soft
Won't follow a policy
Watertight and
Once for all me smite

A wronged wife—>A husband

Raving ans volleying
Boisterousness nay, nay!
You stultify
Must not I.

My mind is bedeviled
Since you I missed.
On your misdemeanor
Brood I shall no more
To night
Come to the cathedral
We first met
As a jump-start
Together out
We have to spend the night.
The night's Zephyr wet
Will wipe away
Our disagreement!

I walk between life and death,
The hours when the days are like
Stakes to the nocturnal heart.
   And I know a walk among tombstones
Is a like a fresh death when the earth
Is covered with scarlet and scenic
Flowers,
    I can already write my death on
The slab as clearly as I see the onset
Of the dusk upon my sun.
   And I know to be dead is but another
Interminable word,
   Like the carnival rides of my childhood,
Lost in a crowd but thrillingly unknown.
   Tonight the stars speak a hope
In a new year, and all the years disappear like
Geese to the North,
   Like Gnarls of teeth locked in a mongrels
Cry behind enclosed yards.
     I am ready to die,
But instead I will write death and
Write a verse to make one think
One knows the true beauty of life,
    Like the insufferably brilliant
Deaths of heroes told in myth
And legend,
    A dissolved illusion to the real illustration
Caught between worlds of perceptions.
     I see death on a dance floor,
A psalm sung and written by me
As my soul whirls the words in spectral
Atoms and lost in the momentary
Eternity.
       And I remember I'm a just a man
With Latin blood spitting
From the womb of my mother.
    And I am on the same side as my heart,
The hourglass fades,
The brutal eyes of truth facing me,
Fierce and unredeeming,
I dance with death,
And there is nothing I can do now.
I have nothing to prove I was here,
Except the poem
And even the words will fade.
Except the song I wrote for death,
It plays over and over
And death dances eternal.

The darkness is taking over me
eradicating herself within the valley of my being
slowly burning away the garden
my guardians cared for centuries

Nights are getting insufferably longer
more so when there's no starry sky
Clouds are accumulating all around
as ivy thoughts that drown the grace within

Do I stand to all
facing the adversity
me, myself, I have harbored

Even if that means looking at a mirror
Embracing the thought of me becoming
my own worst fear

If doing that means flowers will blossom again
Bring the black mirror
and along, my golden hammer
for I will tear this witch down
even if it means wrenching my soul away

Twenty three years; A short
life lived.
The day I die inside little by little.

The older I become the more I
resent life for being insufferably
calloused and bruised.

The pills, the billowing clouds
of cigarette smoke radiating through
the air; The sweet
intoxicating smell of liquor.
Pearls before swine.

No longer does it make me feel
as though I'm part of another.

Life gets the best of us, age is
just a number we all seem to
succumb.
And nothing is enough.
2014 Christina Jackson

I

I taste it daily.
The salt of consequence on the side of my tongue,
Burning my mouth.
Punishing me.

Love is lost.
Shallow and low,
Like a pool of water
Two feet deep,
Predictable and **** flavored.

I taste every answer before it’s heard.
But I deny it just the same.

I dig for the unpredictable.
Muddying my hands in search of
A new flavor.
Drunk as I am at 4 in the morning,
I ask for an answer that I’ve already tasted,
Hoping to be surprised.

I’m not.
I’m given an answer that I already know.
But I pursue it just the same.
I send poems to lost loves,
Knowing they won’t answer,
But I do it just the same.

I find myself alone.
I’ve accepted it.
But I crave companionship,
Just the same.

Like the grass in my pipe.
I crave it.
Love it.
But it kills me.


II

Don’t make it awkward.
Don’t say it.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Don’t say it.
Don’t make it awkward.

You already know,
I say.

No I don’t,
She says.

She’s lying
I know it.
I taste it.

She lives in bliss.
I live in fire.

Don’t say it.
Don’t make it awkward.
I don’t know.

She says this to dampen a blow
That I won’t feel.
I’ve felt it too many times.

Maybe she didn’t know.

III

I’ve lost the sense of caring,
I say it just to say it.
Knowing the answer.
Just to see what happens.

And again I’m forced to move on.
To know that it’s unreciprocated
As it so often seems to be.


Insufferably predictable.
Six months I knew,
Yet I hoped to be surprised.

IV

Somehow,
Confidence remains,
Or perhaps it was born.
Resilient as the day it fell out of the womb.
Unphased by negative response,
Simply frustrated,
Urged to move forward and brush off the needles
Poking at its chest and temples and tongue.
How can a heart die if it has already been pierced?

V

I’ll keep digging,
Searching for a new flavor
Until something sweet sticks.
Until some light shines through the cracks.

I’ll make it awkward.
I’ll make it weird.
I’ve been pierced enough.
I’ve been numbed long enough.

Stab me again.
Try it.
Pick a vein.
Try it.
I hope to feel it.
I want to feel it.

VI

True sadness
Is something that can’t be described.
For some,
Fresh and temporary.
Others,
Old and rooted.
Experienced in different ways
Left to ferment
Through a curious cathartic flavor of isolation.

I’ve fallen into that deep void
before.
Seeking companionship where there is none.
Only to be stabbed in a living heart,
countless times
Until it finally stopped beating.

It’s raining really hard here

because of course it is



I watch The Office to try and cheer myself up

but it’s Season Two where Jim is in unrequited love with Pam

and this predictably makes me feel really bad,

bad enough to prematurely spur on my already planned trip to the store

for beer and razor blades,

the beer because I’m out and

the razor blades because I found out that my pocket knife is pretty dull



I have Miranda July’s short story collection sitting on my shelf,

I got it for you a while ago

and I was planning on giving it to you for Valentine’s,

but I guess now it’s just going to stay on my shelf

and I’ll have two copies of it,

which is really embarrassing

in such an insufferably direct and human way

that it can’t be enhanced by metaphor -

I’ll probably end up giving it to you anyway

because I’m sure you’ll like it

even divorced from its context as a romantic gesture



I’m pulling the nausea inducing maneuver

of sending drunk videos to all my friends,

alternating between complaining and singing

and through an absolutely incredible display of willpower

I resist the urge to send you one,

mostly because I’m pretty sure that

you’re doing totally fine without me

and a drunk video

would be correctly construed as childish and attention seeking,

eliciting an eye-roll at best

and a complete loss of respect

and the chance that you’ll talk to me again at worst



You’re probably out having fun with your friends

because you actually have friends -

the closest thing I have to a friend here left unannounced for the weekend,

and in the kitchen I can hear one of my roommates

stop in the middle of a story about dancing with some girl at a party last night

just long enough to answer a call from his girlfriend,

and I can’t stand being anywhere in the world,

especially not here in my closet of a dorm room



I cut from the outside in,

getting steadily closer and closer to the vein,

like an unsure child afraid to jump into its parents’ arms,

so that by the time I’m finished

it looks like I’ve been keeping track of the days on my wrist



I’m listening to Johnny Foreigner while lying on my floor

and I sing along really loud to the start of Champagne Girls I Have Known,

“She says it’s written in the stars but I don’t look at the stars anymore -

I just want someone to die for”

and that brings my roommate to my door,

he knocks and asks if I’m alright

and I get up and answer the door without thinking,

he sees the blood all over my shirt and the bandages on my wrist

and says “What the ****, dude, are you ok?”

and I say “Yeah, I just fell,”

and I can tell immediately that he doesn’t buy it,

because why would he,

but I cut him off before he can say anything else and

tell him to take a picture of me,

so he does and then leaves me alone again

after taking away my empty gin bottle,

and I still have the picture on my phone,

me slumped in my chair with a barely mustered smile,

I debate all night about whether or not to post it to Facebook so you can see it,

but ultimately decide that it would be too desperate and juvenile even for me



I’m texting Amanda, not because we’re even that close,

because we’re not,

but because she’s the only person

I’m more than fifty percent sure won’t tell anyone

about me flailing around my room

and openly crying about you,

and, trying to be nice, she says,

“She doesn’t even know what she lost,”

I want to sort of scoff at this,

but I just say “A boring *******,”

and she says

“You’re not boring, but you are sometimes an *******

(and I say that in the most loving way possible, haha)”

she asks me if I’ve ever thought of getting help

and after I finish laughing

I tell her that I’m gonna get my psychiatrist to up my dosage,

and she says, “Is that a good idea with how much you drink?”

and I say “No, technically I guess not, but neither is drinking at all,”

and she says “Okay, just making sure.”



I wake up to a bunch of texts from my friends

because apparently they got worried

when all my Snapchat videos of me drunkenly singing

with blood all over my shirt

also contained the obligatory mumbling of

“I wanna **** myself so ******* bad.”

Mike asks if I’m still alive

and I say yes, unfortunately,

and he says, cool beans.

That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about when I say

it’s really hard for me to be at all honest or immediate,

not that I necessarily wanted him to be all, you know,

“Please be careful because you’re my friend and I care about you,

if you need to talk just let me know,”

or something like that,

because that would have felt really uncomfortable and disingenuous

considering our friendship,

but I don’t know, I’d just like to be able to earnestly express myself

in a real, physical scenario without cringing about it forever



Basically all I accomplish all weekend

is spending my last ten dollars on alcohol and drinking all of it the same night,

so now I am literally broke and also

literally out of alcohol,

but I’m sure it will be fine because

nothing bad has ever happened as a result

of my being alone with my thoughts for an extended period of time



I told myself that I wouldn’t write any poems about this,

but my sentimentality got me here

and there’s a comically slim chance that it could get me out

you’re not used to this is how you testify?
woe to thee who asked for ease to be denied!
since you’re better than others and cannot believe otherwise
i have no sympathy if that’s your reply
i don’t care if you’re levitating insufferably high
everyone deserves respect regardless of how stratified
kindness isn’t stupid, it’s beautifully dignified
if you can’t see that then you’re unqualified
to be of those I declare compassionately legitimized
if you were truly great you wouldn’t resort to abuses
you’d be who you are no matter how many uses
and while i believe in doing what one so reasonably chooses
my sympathies are immune to your pompous excuses

I can't do it
I can't stay angry
I can't hold to
The name calling
You're such a ****
I swear I believe that
Please trust me
When I say it
Don't think for one second
That I am all forgiving
That you can do no wrong
Just because
You shine like no other
You shine like me
Partition up
Just a curtain
A heavy curtain
I see the shapes
On the other side
I am angry now
I swear it
Don't believe otherwise
There is no love
In that which lies
A cold tattered wretch
On the cold wooden stage
Who plays that part
Not you nor I
We are the light
And we shine
Through love, bright
But I swear
I've convinced myself
That you are a ****

Every dreary day's the same.
Every important detail is halted
in a stalemate over a somewhen
that feels much like eternity.

I remember it all by heart,
my laughable fortress of apathy:
the texture of the chair,
the length of the motion
between my hand and my addiction
in the form of keyboard and mouse,
the brightness of fake mechanical dreams,
and the mess of real ones.

Then the line between evening and night blurs
or sometimes night and day,
and comes the tedious unrewarding process
of laying in bed, and listening
to all the little pains
of human body and mind:
little scratches, aches,
and too many thoughts.

Thoughts about
all the little things
that make me insufferably like myself:
my ego, wishing only to cage the world.
and make it dance like a fool,
conversing with despair,
an extravagant fellow
who sees no world
outside of mechanical fools
staged on a collapsing surface.

There are also social thoughts
about the game theory, hormones, and stress
of playing in human society.
People connected by fragile threads.
Loneliness is a paradox,
as it tends to grow with density.
It’s always hard to find
the ideal strategy.

I also remember well
the feeling of waking up.
I would have never known
how passionately one could hate
a series of fragmented sound bites saying:
"The time is 7:30 am. The time is-", I know.
Of course, you can’t know that I know,
or rather you just can’t know,
but it feels like you should by now, y’know??


After a period of time
equal parts instant and unending
I find myself strapped
to yet another, less comfortable chair.
There are a few dozen others
sitting in equally uncomfortable chairs
in equally inexpressive fashion.

At an opposite angle,
stands a bigger one
relaying piles of data
to be computed and organized
and tediously rehearsed,
by us, smaller calculators in training.
The most exciting
and unfun part
of our structural data training
are the tests
to check each one’s margin of error
and kindly give particularly special care
to the ones on the lower end
of achievement.

Sometimes one of the bigger ones
asks me if I’m fine
what a stupidly kind but pointless question.
Because, of course,
there’s only one correct answer
So I make a clueless face
and give the same one every time
I want to be a good calculator, after all.

But it’s far too obvious
to even bother saying
that nothing is ever fine
maybe that’s why no one does say it
and when I remember
the depth of my unfineness
my center of gravity sinks
deep into the earth
and all that’s left is the feeling
of my soul digesting itself,
and in those lucid moments
when the game of reality ceases
and nothing can be good or bad
and life becomes
too sad a story to handle
I can’t help but smile.

We stand in a fading blood-red sunset
I can barely see the curve of his lips
The weeping willow above casts us in darkness
He waits
I wring my hands together
I'm sorry to ask you here I finally say
But I need your help
"I know" he smirks
Of course he does
He's always been insufferably conceited
But he's my only hope

You know this land is being run to pieces by the dragons I begin
And that I've been fighting them for years now
I managed to push them to the smallest, darkest corner I could find
I set my story, defensive- and for good reason
He snickers
"But you can't keep them there"
I look to the ground as I say out loud what I've been afraid to admit
Right

"So that's why you need my help?"
"To keep the dragons at bay?"
He asks, appalled
"Like a babysitter" he mutters to himself

Like a guard I correct him

"And what if I said no?"
He's testing me, and I have no good response
I'm desperate
Please don't

Inexplicably, so unlike the boy I thought I knew, he softens
He closes the distance between us in one step
Cups my cheek gently with his fingers
I tense at his touch
But he is pulling my eyes to his
And for some reason, I let him

"And what if I said yes?"
He asks
He tucks the loose curl of my hair behind my ear and I shiver
What wouldn't I sacrifice to be free of the dragons?

I'd be in your debt
I stutter the words
My insides feel like they're melting out of me
To be read by those cold, dark eyes
I hesitate

You'd be a part of me, permanently

He smirks again
And the shiver travels down my spine
An apprehensive excitement for this trade
The chain to him to which I've just sentenced myself

"So be it then"
His whisper rustles through the leaves of the tree and carry across the sunset
"I have some dragons to guard"
He whistles and starts to walk away, leaving me to the rapidly increasing darkness

"I'll expect a visit every now and again"
He calls over his shoulder
I thought I was free, but through him my dealings with the dragons were instead
guaranteed

He's always been a few steps ahead of me
But I guess that makes sense
Coming from the boy who lives inside my head

of the two places this world has to offer... i find a totality in only two enclosures... the forest... Bower Wood... or the Havering County Park... and any cemetery... it has to be a contest between, either trees... or graves...

i usually weep when i find something insufferably
beautiful... that it's usually music
is no surprise...
               i could argue with the Darwinism that
surrounds the argument that men are
visual creatures, primarily... to be honest?
i'm more prone to trust my ears with regards to...
what ought to be wept over...
i.e. if Ancient Greece is known for their cohort
of child-men... philosophers of this period were:
the epitome of the child-man...
there's no argument...
         never did so many individuals have so many
original thoughts as those, ******* did...
period...
but what is Byzantine Greece known for?
         for me? the psalms...
            Δευτε λαoι...
           now i could rewrite this using the proper
diacritical markers... or... i could use hyphens...
i.e. for the syllables being seen...
    deu-tE       lao-E...
             the capital letter indicates an acute accent
hovering about the letter... in the latter case...
an IOTA becomes EPSILON...
  it's still bewildering for me...
the difference between EPSILON and ETA...
but these letters have... names!
so much so that they can become mathematical
constants or scientific constants...
on point: it also seems it's not that the greek
gods died... but the letters abandoned the Greeks...
that the Ancient Greeks were the originators...
they didn't give us any follow-up scrutiny
of the world...
imagination takes its toil...
but at least the letters are also nouns...
unlike their Roman counterparts which are...
vowels and consonants: two categories...
only last night i was writing with someone
when... it started to rain that sort of impossibly
while i was perched on the windowsill sitting
on a folded right leg with the left leg dangling...
as it rained i outstretched my hand in an imitation
of a cup and... subsequently...
started to smear the rain onto my face
and into my hair...
it's coming up to the anniversary of my grandfather's
death and... one year later...
i abhor to borrow from pop culture:
esp. harry potter...
but... it had me thinking...
the horcrux...
             crux: pivot... cross... Golgotha..
but what's the etymology of the prefix hor-     ?
-ror?
        it implies what it implies...
splitting of the soul via killing someone...
through the absolute negation: the non-existent other...
it was only a splendid 1pm when i sat down
to drink some coffee...
on a side-note... after having stopped drinking
the typical way English people drink tea: with a dollop
of milk (they also drink tea this way in Siberia,
who came up with it?) green tea... thoroughly green...
i've emerged with a lactose intolerance...
i could drink raw milk by the pint...
now? i get the ******* ***** and stomach churns
like i'm about to eat a bag of beans!
i guess Pythagoras was right...
there must be the antonym of a horcrux in terms of...
the people we loved... were intimate with...
perhaps love is unlike killing...
esp. when the people you love are no longer
in your life...
it's not impossible to think that your soul (Σ...
that which is the all encompassing animation of
this, here... body) can't split... splinter...
oh it's so much easier with prostitutes...
one hour... half an hour...
i still remember them... how i touched them...
the grooves of their collar-bones...
their knees...
how their hands disappeared into mine...
the tenderness of so many parts of their body...
the tension in some...
            that's easy to sort out...
  but i'm always elsewhere...
  ah! it's so simple! what?! the etymology!
the prefix hor- is not associated with the root word
horror... it is... hor- for horizontal!
well then... if the thesis of a horcrux... is achieved
by killing someone...
then... the antithesis if a vercrux...
vertical / (transitive) to see...
                   oh i see... even having affection for
my grandfather (maternal): my paternal grandfather
can be dismissed...
don't ask... long story...
               strange... this transition...
when nature takes its course and a vercrux disappears:
you sort of... implode...
a piece of you returns to you...
since... a piece of you attached to a person
is no longer alive...
i still have plenty of vercruxes to find...
well... "find"...
for a year i tried to cry... i found it was easier
to break my head a little and bleed out one night
than cry... i finally did manage to mourn...
but i don't think i was mourning...
it was still beauty that brought me to tears:
el cant de la sibil.la catalunya
                       jordi savall...
hell... i still have pieces of me lost in people
somewhere...
it's not that i regret them not being in my life...
this one Russian beau...
beauty she wasn't... sort of troll-like...
bad tempered dreads... terrible accent... great ***...
terrible manners:
liar... she introduced me to her grandmother
and told me she was her mother...
while her mother... was "apparently" her sister...
well... you know... those Novosibirsk girls...
****'s on fire!
i rarely lie so when i hear someone try to persuade me
with their little fiction piece but
no ******* Anna Karenina... i tend to believe them...
it's not that they're purposively liars:
infusing lies with negation...
but that... they think their lives are boring...
mundane... bleached... eh...
there's this proverb: lies walk on short legs...
but i can't forgive myself the fact that i:
gave up a piece of myself for this girl!
i bemoan a part of my lost to her...
i don't bemoan her...
she ****** off like Jennie in Forrest Gump...
engaged to me, married some poor sucker...
then dated others...
she's... 34 and on her 2nd if not third husband...
the last time i saw her...
for some odd reason i need to visit Edinburgh...
again...
if there's any city i wish to haunt...
Paris is great when you're alive...
but i imagine Edinburgh is even better when
you're dead...
there she was... the same old her... girl...
playing video games...
with her hand slashed downward in parallel with
her veins...
i brought a copy of Joyce's Finnegans Wake...
i peered at what she was reading...
Ulysses and some Nietzsche...
                such a talkative creature... arrogant...
now... reduced by my presence to...
chewing on her tongue...
               she threw a party because i guess my presence
evoked a sense of claustrophobia:
esp. seeing her so vulnerable... slashed had
detailing the presence of her veins...
only then she seemed like a tender creature...
but then i started talking to this guy
and he said he ****** her...
while she was dating this other guy who
simply looked at me sitting on the sofa... sleeping
on the sofa for three days...
never being undressed...
bringing her a curry: mein gott... the amount
of coffee she was drinking while playing
video games...
she was draining her body of potassium: i thought...
my first girlfriend came up to Edinburgh
for me to play a lesbian game with her
while ******* her *******...
months later... maybe a year... she lost her virginity
to me... not a fun event...
******* a ******: i don't understand why you'd
need 72... i remember the sensation of
pulling back my *******
and the... flimsy sort skin protecting what
would later become...
a breeding machine... i commented on her
most recent birth... how sad she looked...
she excused me for being an artist...
i don't think she understood the meaning...
i was saying she was sad in the context of Henry VII...
5 children... all daughters...
and she came from a big household...
two brothers and a sister...
Priya... love at first sight...
     i remember the first time i saw her younger sister...
i must have been 18 while she was...
14? well... you read enough Marquis de Sade /
Nabokov... there's nothing terribly bad about
anything... if you orientate yourself properly...
****... i need more juice to write some more...
momentum!
i've never tasted amphetamines...
tobacco and more bourbon will have to supply
me with enough substitute...

forests and graveyards...
i'm at my wit's end trying to compare...
both... i can't tell the one from the other...
making a ****** lose her virginity is one thing...
but losing one's own?
from what i later found out in the brothel
where... unlike that Spanish girl: under the bed sheets?
seriously?! it's suffocating...
at least in the brothel we do things openly naked...
dimmed lights... sure... but not in ******* cocoons!

Isabella... what a ****** way to lose one's virginity...
third year exchange student from Grenoble...
Isabella...
            man in *** is like a diesel engine...
it takes time... it takes experience...
i've given up on how the reverse missionary:
rodeo? would look like... *******...
i've given up...
  30 minutes every half a decade is:
by my "understanding" plentiful...

first girlfriend... so we had a party...
blah blah... the rest of the night i remember tending to
her in a... sand-sack(?)... all shivering...
while her best fwend was downstairs
in some Shoreditch apartment doing coke....
i just remember the sensation of her shivering...
half away... came the morning: came the break-up...

it's so refreshing when you're a man
and... all the women in your life break up with you...
it's so refreshing not being a ****-boy...
i love it!

oh these grand biographies... once the life has been lived
people finally surrender to what
some people find: ongoing... it's never something to
be "found" once "enough" has been...
ahem... "accomplished":
i find it's best... found... at its most fractured...
yet "somehow" coming together...

TOMIKUNI... a name of this Japanese fwend i had
at university... watch me now:
i'll bemoan how Japanese... doesn't allow
its syllables to mangle with two consonants...
akin to -bl-
         which, looks deceptively Russian...
i.e. ы...            at best represented in Latin via: ý...
but in Japanese you can't mingle two consonants
together...
you can't have a... PRior...
               everything in this language
is cut to sushi proportions when vowels mingle
with consonants...
it's such a lovely... way to encode sounds
without process Chinese ideograms (skeletal
hieroglyphics)...

i'm still a splintered conjuring of man...
i left pieces of myself in others!
two parts of me have returned...
the death of my maternal great-grandmother
and my maternal grandfather...
mangled hip-replacement bona fide(s)!
perhaps if i lived among people that
happened to breed like rabbits...
it could make my stomach churn out less
spare cheese of curd....

a litre of diesel fuel of herr whiskers
& ms. amber will do to ein... one...
i've splintered my soul so much up...
then again: when i'm all alone and... ahem...
"surprised"... i'll find the world
at its zenith...
me not being in it to begin with...
what a comforting thought...
terribly blessing with all its agonies:
nonetheless... forthcoming in the grit of reality....

one litre of bourbon! **** me...
back to my "good old days"!
only recently i ws scribbling with some girl...
what is it.... Halloween season?
i need to be messaging four girls
simultaneously?!

i still think my beard makes a better violin:
should even the best of violins come
to the fore!

Life.
Insufferably long,
yet
cruelly short.
Life.
Insanely difficult,
and
easy as laughter.
Life.
Selflessly caring,
but
brutally harsh.
Your life.
Wonderfully poignant,
whilst
utterly pointless.
This life.
Excitingly unknowing,
and
ultimately fatal.
All life.
Delicately fragile,
yet
fiercely resilient.
Life.
Ineffably beautiful,
and
unspeakably ugly.

Life.

God! men are damnable creatures!
I'm beginning to see why people believe you are female.
Why did you make them so insufferably ignorant and belittling and mean!
They don't need to be that keen!
Why the attraction?
I don't understand!
Why make them fools to feed from our hands?
I like most better at a distance,
Distance enough,
So I can sniff out their intentions.
Call each one's bluff.
There are but a few I must admit
that don't gawk like sharks
at us "little" fish.
So what makes them differ
from the harshest there is
Why are some men like demons and
others well...perfect?

I wanted to write a poem for you.
I really did. And I tried. You deserve an epic.
I don't understand why it won't just fall out of me
The way my tooth did last year, or a swear does any day-

I didn't get why I couldn't put you into words,
packaged neat, edited well. Simple.
It should be, I thought. It's established.
You know. I know. It's clear. Sky's blue.

And perhaps that's exactly it.
I love you so simply I cannot complicate it.
I love you so wholly there's no room to doubt it.
I love you in a way that is reciprocated, complete,
entirely inscrutable to me. For once in my life, I am tongue tied.

You would think I could write a poem about that.
You would think I could write a book about you
then sell it on Oprah's couch, humble-smug
insufferably smitten and fulfilled.
But I can't. I didn't write this story. It happened to me.

You happened to me. And we're both still a little...
bewildered, might be the word. It's been years,
it's not new, it's not puppy love that brings you home to me.
And we didn't expect this, we never felt that it was owed,
or knew the world even had any of this left in it.

And yet, quietly. If I could just shut up and listen.
The epic writes itself, it isn't forced, it isn't marketable,
But it's true, innately woven into the feeling that I
am now home wherever we go. I learned to speak in tongues,
I ate a dictionary, I wrote until my eyes and fingers were crimson
but I simply could not write something this good.