His green eyes stare into mine
Glistening in the candlelight
Shifting their gaze as it flickers
He kisses my hands and up my arms
Melting my heart and the snow

All dimples and curls and pigeon toes when sitting,
purple; and gold dangles
light-skinned girl, dark-skinned girl
depending on the translation
hips swivel to the left, ******* that follow
in commanding black bras
and matching lacy *******.
Rolling backwards into handstands for most *******,
else on the loveseat
whipping love back and forth between the swell
beneath the shorts
and beneath the outer layers,
the lip gloss smiles and masquerades
beneath the veins and bone and guts:
there's a naked, quivering heater
switched on all year long
its dainty wiring peeking out,
the head of the cord puckered.

late october,
today my heart is wandering,
I still listen to your music.
things I like fall in my lap and I pick up the phone to tell you,
someone I can hide behind

maybe I just like warm waists and strong arms
maybe I like feeling small,
I met this boy today, love,
he reminds me of home, of fresh tortillas wrapped in tinfoil
he reminds me of this summer, and of you.

he doesn't like the things we liked,
but he's a different fabric
and I am patching this idea that
we never stop loving anyone

They call it a Loveseat because it was designed for you to make love on it
We have to re-rate all those G-rated films with Loveseats in them
They imply ****** tension
And we don't want that exposed to our children!
It's the work of the devil!
I demand action on them now!
Can't you see i'm joking?
We're merely close to twenty years of this century
And it's only gotten more ridiculous
The future awaits
For more loveseat incidents
And people up in arms over tedious, pointless things that nobody should care about
But ISIS? That Egypitan babe has been dead for so long! What are you talking about?
There's no way that old darling is still alive?
Terrorism? What's that?
Is that the term they use when they see Loveseats in G movies?

Be patient, it might take some time. Just, let it build up. Don't uncross’em  it will feel awesome. You should know yourself, what works best, rolling or rocking? Don't think about it, just relax. Use some muscle, the one between your legs. Hussle; ruffle and tussle, it’s like trying to make a puzzle fit; sometimes you gotta wiggle it a bit, a little bit.What’s wrong, you looked puzzled? You red, so into it. lights out; so intimate. Now try feeling between the lines, you have to focus a bit.  Forget what you read; and what's been said; you won’t go blind, it’s all in your head. The only time you should lose site, is when you re-sight this vision in your head; closed eyes, on your loveseat, sofa or bed. Just repeat it in your head, like Simon said. **** around and hit the right button, you might wet the bed.  My sign language tracing over your lips, repeating what I said.  First come, first serve; you can't be beat. Just, listen to my voice, follow my lead. See, you don’t need to see men, to succeed, you got me.So. take your time, no rush. Relax, match your breathing with mine. slow, down, take your time.Touch your fingertip, to your little tip, and grind- press down harder, yeah, that is it.. Pause, fast, forward, left, right; rewind.  Now, do all if that, one more time. But first, lick your fingertip, so your *******, rise and shine, glitterish. Your index, just slide, inside you appendix, cause I penned it; very specific.  Here's another  tip; curl your fingers, like a tongue would flick your upper lip - the thought alone should make you flip. Now your *******, soaking wet, that's my favorite. Just use your imagination; then go for it! Your heart will skip. Pace yourself, you can't cheat.  Sped up your hearts rate, to your beat. You might have left a note to yourself, but I’m the one that wrote it all over your sheets!

When the world starts crumbling around me
I close my eyes and build.
A shelf here, our bed there;
a table for four, a porch for more;
Hardwood floors, soft pillows;
your record player, a piano;
framed photographs of ruins;
a loveseat piled with books.
When I start to question,
I start to build.
And in the long silences between us,
I am furnishing our home,
piece by piece,
until I forget the question,
and remember
that I,
that we,
are under construction.

The setting of traps
has always seemed
like a tacit endorsement
of the mice.

Acknowledgement.
Validation.
Admission of failings as a homeowner –
(cracked baseboards or an unsealed gap in the door.)

We are usually responsible
for our own infestations, after all.

The relationship with the mice is codified
“you are vermin,
I am not.
I will ****.
You will die.”

Thus the mice are transfigured,
Christ-like.
Frozen in fear,
frozen in time,
laid bare
on a sticky, chemical
altar of sacrifice.

Saviors
giving their lives
so that we may preserve
those unwanted crumbs
in the vacant space
between the couch and loveseat
where the vacuum won’t reach.

I open the door-
three in the afternoon
my short hair windblown
and rain soaked
by the seven minute walk home
i've taken to taking
to avoid
the one who used to love me

i opened the door-
he was sitting there
too still to be in that purple chair
four feet from the door
that he only sits in
when the veins in his forehead
are popping out
themselves turning purple.
but, he was smiling;
that melancholy smile that makes me wonder,
even though i quit giving a ****
about him
when i was seven,
living with him in a bus
in a field, someplace.
with a sun lamp
and a *** plant
in the storage compartment

and she's lying there,
dressed, but barely awake
with that thin blue and white blanket
that she's had since he was young
draped over her
on that floral loveseat she's always had
a smile on her face
but tears in her eyes

he swivels the chair
to give me room to pass
but i ease instead
around the separating wall
through the kitchen
and down the hall.
a smile on my face
as i look back and he stands
that old chair complaining
as much as his back

he looks back at me
and i realize
why that look in his eyes
brought the same smile he wears
to my lips;
because he's realized
that i've won here,
that in six months
i'm gone
moving on
disconnecting myself
and becoming my own **** person

he's realized that he doesn't know me
never has

he's seen the way i shake
everytime he's less than twenty feet from me
heard
the waver in my voice

he's noticed the way
that even on good days
i open the door to the garage
five times at the most.

noticed the worry lines on my forehead
the gray hairs on my chin and head
my bitten fingernails
or the spot where I scratched
half of my mustache
right off my face

or, at least
i *** he has
hope he's realized that
there's no hope
for me and him

but
he hasn't
and that conversation
was just something else,
didn't even involve me

i can hope all i want
but until i take it all away
he's never gonna realize
that it isn't
Him
winning here

never has been



©Brandon Webb
2012

There was water near, her horse could smell it, and so could she after journeying so far. Seemingly small things regained their importance in an empty land such as this, for what use is wealth without water, or power without others to wield it upon? A strange thought, not like her at all. People changed in this desert though; she knew from the way she watched her horse’s stride, and how she could remember all the names of the constellations, something she had not been able to do since times long past. She would not allow her mount to make directly for the water source, a well most likely, and she was wary. Around the foot of this dune, and there it was, the expected well, and a single palm standing sentry beside it. She drew water, relished the sound as it sloshed around in the hide bag, relished the act of letting her horse drink first, the joy of uncomplicated companionship. She drank, refilled her own water skins, ate a few dates, and let her gaze wander. She had maybe an hour left of daylight and was in no hurry to arrive, wherever it was that she was going. A hawk cried as it stooped upon a hare two hundred yards to her right, a beautiful thing to her. And on the heels of that, a fear. A quarter mile away, outlined against the distant plateau, walked another rider.

She had been drifting, sailing almost into a sleep, and now she was awake. What was that sound? Guitar. Her guitar, played with unsure hands, hesitant and sad. Bodiless chords making their way through the open window. God it was hot, oppressive almost, and she could still see the sweat beading on Clara’s forehead. She would not get back to sleep now, not so uncomfortable. She wriggled out of bed, carefully moving out of Clara’s arms. Needlessly though, Clara never woke without a good shaking or a loud noise. She pulled her green sweater off of the chair where it had been thrown an hour before and paused before putting it on. Something she had forgotten to do maybe, something at the back of her mind. Nothing. Closing the door behind her, she padded through the small living room to the open balcony and stood behind the man sitting on an old barstool, rescued he said, from a bar in Alfama. She watched him try and play her guitar, watched him bent in concentration. There was a bottle of wine and two glasses, one empty, standing on the wicker table next to him. Picking up the empty one, he held it out to her without turning around. “I hope I didn’t bother you Ta’ra, I was in a mood and couldn’t help it.” “No,” she said, taking the offered glass, “It’s too hot to sleep.” It annoyed her that he always knew when someone was around him, and in she and Clara’s case, which one of them. Curling up on the loveseat opposite him, she gazed out at Lisboa in all of its late afternoon beauty. “Give that back, you’re butchering whatever the hell it is you’re trying to play,” holding her hand out for her guitar. He handed it back to her, shrugged and said something about it being a long time since he’d picked up an instrument. She smiled, drained her glass, and began to play an old song, barely remembered. “Çevrem, etrafım şen mutlu iken. Ben yine hüzünlüyüm” She had never heard the melody played with a guitar, but she knew it well enough to play it without any hesitation. A haunting thing, this song, in a dialect she only knew by proximity, but no less powerful for people who cared for such things. She cradled her guitar, intent only on the music, on where her fingers must go. He watched and listened. “Why talk. If you do not listen to me? Running away…”

I give my body up
To anyone that asks,
Just to have 30 minutes
Of artificial love unmasked

But when it’s all done,
It’s over too soon,
My face plunges my hands,
Tears turn my fingers to prunes

Like buzzing bees in a hive
They can’t seem to sit still,
On the edge of the loveseat paralyzed
With a defiled heart shaped box to fill

I’ve sampled it all
I’ve tried different styles,
I even bought new makeup
I toned and ran extra miles,
I bought myself new clothes
Hung the old with a noose,
Even with pained effort
They forever call me “loose”

So I starve, I suffer,
I pull food from my stomach,
I beg johns to stay but they leave,
After paying the hotel check

With nothing left I stare
Out into the dangerous distance,
With ripped, lace underwear
That to him, didn’t make a difference

Tomorrow I will try again
To make myself a debutante,
Easy gaunt bodies, and shiny hair,
Isn’t that what all guys want?

You don't have to worry
I won't be here long
I only stopped by to grab a few things
Before I go

Nothing has changed, has it?
Oh, but who am I trying to fool?
I only said that because I was disoriented
By how different it all is, the furniture you've moved
I don't suppose it could have been any different
Had I hung around to watch you move it
We both know I couldn't have helped you
I wasn't strong enough and I don't mind admitting that
I only wish you had understood
That you had known just how much I liked the loveseat against the west wall
That you hadn't held it against me, my weakness, I couldn't lift those things
I didn't want to lift them and maybe that's something you didn't get
Of all the things you could have gotten
Had you not known how cheaply I could be had
You have no grasp whatsoever of Feng Shui
Or most likely it's my own inability to appreciate it
Yes, that's the truth, when you get down to it

I dreamed I saw you
Standing at an open window
4 stories high, looking down at a flag waving in the breeze
Leaning forward slightly
My gut clenched in fear
I felt worry like a strong breeze
Pushing me toward you
Stopped by some invisible responsibility
"If you love somebody, set them free"
That stupid song started playing in my head and I froze in my tracks
Even as you leaned forward even more
I thought
The possibility that you would fall outweighed
The likelihood that you would not
In that realization I saw what was wrong with me
Just like the time when I was 6 years old, playing in the park
Dad was at the picnic table playing cards with his friends
(That's what they liked to do)
I climbed up to the top of a very high slide
All by myself, no one to help me, no big deal
But he saw me
He felt the same breeze, almost like an East wind ushering in a thunderstorm
He stood up, a reflex, an instinct
And he watched with the same tingle of fear I felt in my dream
With every bit of strength within him he stayed
He was a real worrier, yet he overcame that worry
Just
Long
Enough
To see me laughing as I made my way down that slide
I love him for that
It was many, many years after that I finally came to understand
How essential are the words:
"Be Careful"
So that's what I said to you
Watching you bend over even more
Forgiving myself for being so worried
Because if you had fallen
I would have lived the rest of my life
Wondering why I didn't jump out after you

Those last days were kind of rough, weren't they?
The fights over who kept what and what was whose
The resigned silence
Reading each others minds, or so we thought
We might as well have been illiterate for our ability
Blame cast in every direction like fiery arrows deflected
By shields of indifference
I won't say I'm the innocent one
I won't be here for long
I only came to grab a few things
Soon be gone

This is not for you
Think what you will, I know you do
This is not even for me
Written, forgotten, that's how it must be
My codes are easily deciphered
Your cryptograms are broken
Not as clever, either one of us, as we thought
So it's better to be forthright
This place is so unfamiliar
It's impossible to believe I lived here for so long
It's yours now
If I could only ask for the DVD of "The Truman Show" beneath the books in "our" bedroom
I know you always thought of it as yours
But...

So now I'll be going
Hope I haven't kept you too long
I got what I came for
Turn away, love, I'm gone

Sleeping on a loveseat
in a crowded living room
waking up in the morning
tap tap tap on my leg
"You have to babysit," she says,
walking out the door with her husband
My mother, oh my mother
left me here again,
with three kids
I know she has to work,
I know she's got bills to pay
but I wish I had some time to myself
to be 16
like I'll never be again
I want to learn to drive,
I want to catch fireflies at 12 a.m
with bare feet sliding in the dewy grass
I'm only 16 my brain says
no, wait, not even 16
not yet
I want to learn to make my own mistakes
and not have to be an influence
I know this is my life..
but I wish I didn't sleep all the time.
Depressed, anxiety
I really wonder what's wrong with me
I want to love myself
like the love I give to everybody else
I want to get good grades
and kiss the night away
I want to cuddle up in a big warm bed
beside my lovely
but no
I'm sleeping on a loveseat
in a crowded living room
wondering what's wrong with me
to wake up in the morning
to birds singing the same tune.

Bottle of Tums on the end-table
surrounded by an imprisoned fan;
a lava lamp of antacids, cornered by dead precious-metal presidents.
Some greying ceramic **** matriarch
has a bulb sprouting out of her head,
radiating fat yellow on the olive corner, also onto the loveseat.

I say, I should read.
I say, People don't like
  one another, anymore.
She says, I want to be a doctor.
Work with animals, she said,
Help pets and people.

Days go by like the shush
following blurs of traffic.
Am I aging too soon;
Am I important enough
  to care.

Try to sell me some
Pyramid Scheme ****,
the man my age does--
the kid--
He wants sixty-five for
off-brand perfume. No way.
How about, he looks around,
the manager's discount: twenty.
I say no. I'm sorry. I can't help you.
He says no. He's sorry. He can't help himself.

An American filmography:

A Thief in Brooklyn, 1997,
Dirk Diggler Productions,
A 20 y/o man breaks into
apartments, stealing pills
from the elder renters.

Ghost Before Sundown, 2003,
Marythrone Image,
A woman suspects she is
a ghost and tries to come to
terms with never succeeding
in life.

sitting on my couch in the living room,
loveseat actually, yet I am all alone.
I live so deep in my head nothing
looks real
then BAM
moments
the blur clears and I can see
then BAM
the blurry film is pulled
down
ugh why is it back?
I don't know what i want
need
I just don't know
who will make me happy?
what will make me happy?
I am stuck on this loveseat
alone.

soon enough I discovered
her neighbor calls him Caspar or Caspor
but it wasn't long
before I named him Auguste

he has claimed my love's apartment—
even hypnotized her to have ready
water and treats on one corner

but what impressed us most,
the first time he laid eyes on me,
he started rolling over and over me
on the loveseat

thus, he has seduced us entirely
every time he prances down the hall,
when the back door has been left slightly ajar,
our eyes light up—each hoping to be the one
he'll first approach for petting
~
©2016 Spiros Zafiris..channeled, spirit Harmony;
reaching into the poet's mind

I’m at an (outdoor) dinner, with Peter, some of his doctoral-student friends, professors and their spouses, to kick-off the Fall semester and Peter’s second year in the doctoral program.

“So, what impressions did you take away from your time at the Large Hadron Collider?”
A 60-ish professor asked Peter. In this setting, as a student pursuing his doctorate, Peter’s comments will probably be noted and there’s a watching anticipation.

Peter is a tall, pale, scraggy, 25-year-old with unruly, deep-cove-blue, almost-black hair. Tonight, he’s dressed in a brown, distressed Italian lambskin leather blazer that I got him in Paris, as a fall semester present and his usual, dark, neutral shades of brown. To break those sleepy colors up I also gave him a soft-caramel-brown tie, inlaid with tiny, yellow, rubber ducks.  

“Two impressions, really,” Peter begins, “First, the Higgs Boson particle was discovered a decade ago - but since then we haven’t seen any notable results - the particles we expected, when we expected them. Of course, “no results” is an important part of the scientific process,” he continued, “and those researchers still deserve their doctorates, but it isn’t ****, and it won’t win any Nobel prizes.” He has the room’s attention.

“Secondly,” he says, looking around for reassuring eye-contact, “experimental particle physics is a very expensive business.” This observation generates nods, toasts and laughter all around.

When the reaction dies down, he gets another question.
“Why do you think we aren’t seeing better results?” another professor asks him.

“I think the problem,” Peter twists his head as he turns serious and begins his reply - and by the way, he looks adorable in the soft light of the dancing Japanese lanterns - “is the lag between the theories and our ability to experiment. It takes so long to build a collider, that theories out-evolve them. The apparatuses we have now - like the Hadron Collider - were designed based on theories from 30 years ago.” Again, there are nods and thoughtful looks before the professors move their questioning to the next student.

Later, we’re in the common room of my dorm suite, huddled together, talking hushedly on an overstuffed loveseat while others watch TV or read. “OH!” I say, still in a whisper voice, like I’ve just remembered something interesting, “You know what I heard - about the doctoral physics program?”

“What?” Peter says, I have his unblinking attention now. After all, I was talking with professors and their wives and shards of information are precious, not unlike atom particles, so he’s openly curious, his head tilted in focus.

“I was told, I say slowly and earnestly, “by a reliable source,” I begin playing with one of his shirt buttons, “that doctoral students,” I pause for maximum effect, to indicate this is important, “have equipment that’s 25 to 30 years OLD - outDATED equipment..”

He’s on to me now, and he starts to lean into me and grin. “that might not be able to get the JOB done!” I finished, busting out laughing as he caught my underarms with tickle fingers. I shrieked with delight at my own joke and his reaction.

“We’ll SEE about THAT!” He says while playing my ribs like accordions, producing newer and louder squeals and mutual giggles.

“Hey!” Anna said, turning as she paused her “Better Call Saul” finale.
“Get a ROOM!” Leong suggested, sarcastically, in mid-popcorn scoop.
Lisa eyed us annoyedly over her Chemistry book.
Sophy rolled her eyes, smiling and blood-thirsty Sunny barked “Get ‘er!”

I just firmly placed my hands
On the side of the loveseat armrest
And then walked my feet
Up the adjacent wall
Until my body was at
A 45 degree angle
To the floor.
I'm not sure,
Why
I did that.
But it was a good decision
I've never seen this room
From that point of view before.

It’s hard to live
A life un-private.

A seasonal home.

Sleeping on a loveseat,
In a room where the TV is always on.
Constant headaches.
Lights and sounds that stab.
She sits by screens
All
Day.

And wonders why she is sad.

I fear
It will begin to spread.
I can’t escape, especially not at night.

I think I’ll take a shower.

We wade and wait through the daily hate to
practice our fractured love each night.
We make and mate once it gets late, just
to have a day's worth of material to write.

Now you're the wet dreams
slowly rusting away my mettle,
and I just smile, nod, and
paint you a ****** portrait.

In the silence between dry heaves,
while waiting for my gorge to settle,
I pray to the porcelain god and
spit on my reflection in the toilet.

I venture outside then to choke on a smoke
and I **** your name into snowy leaves.

Can't afford a deathbed, I'm so ******* broke,
please just **** me on the loveseat.

“But what about all the things you told me?”
He asked her, quietly, his voice a faint, timid whisper,
More afraid of the answer than the question.
She stares motionless, not trusting her voice,
Knowing it will betray her... like before.
“You said you’d stay with me forever.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek,
As silent as the stars above, yet as loud as a rushing waterfall.
“You said we’d have a family together, a home.”
She was forced to sit down on the plush loveseat,
An ironic backdrop to the turmoil that was slowly unfolding.
“You said I was your one and only.”
She notices the trembling in his voice,
The soft, quivering whimper, much like a puppy,
That betrays he is close to tears.
“Your forever and always.”
She can hardly hear him, so she leans in closer,
Gazing into his watery eyes, swimming with honest tears.
“You said you had written my name on your heart.”
Mustering her strength, courage, and will, she responds:
“Only in pencil.”

"I fell in love with a fairytale."

Those were her words when I asked why our lives had become what they are now.

The first entrance to her flat, tapestries and flowers and shards of pottery assaulting me as soon as I set foot through the door. A six foot print of The Accolade embroidered like the Bayeux hanging in an alcove. The single rose I gave her placed in an empty wine bottle. She played Yo-Yo Ma on vinyl with something that looked like the first gramophone ever made. I always think of her now when I hear a cello, and whatever it is I'm doing at the time stops for the memory. I will always remember her curled up on that red loveseat like the empress she was to me. We first made love there, on old red satin or whatever it was. Corse to the touch, but beautiful. It was only after the first time that she would let me kiss her on the lips, like it was something allowed after passing a test. She never spoke of it, when or why she let me into her world, a world I had only ever been permitted to sojourn through before. The Kiss hung above her bed, and after she had fallen asleep the first night we lay there together I stared up at it with her in my arms thinking....thinking that I had been searching for this woman forever. I have not been the same man since that night. She became my faith.

You wouldn't know to see it now that we had bliss in this place for five years. Five years of being whole, of the absolute knowledge that we were exactly what we were supposed to be. There is nothing left of us here now. The door is gone. An explosion of some sort destroyed most of the living room. I believe her bedroom was used as a firing position for an anti-tank team at one point in the fighting. Shell casings are everywhere, all the glass is shattered and there are stains in abundance.

Where is she you ask?  

I didn't want to believe what I first heard, but after seeing her face again I knew it was true. Oh, you know her well I'm sure since you were able to find me. She is the reason the front has been extended. She is the reason there is bread now, even if it isn't quite palatable. She is the reason so many more have died than necessary. Over here, let me show you who she is. She's on this poster, the valiant People's Commandante leading us into a glorious future. You know who she is now, serve her excellently I have no doubt. But before you do whatever it is you were sent to do I want you to know that I saved The Kiss before our city burned. You will never find it. And even if she refuses it now, once upon a time she had a different name. Once, when she loved me, her name was Ivy.

Her fingernails were square
and stretching for her cigarette;

Previously lost
next to papers, pens, magazines
and envelopes with short notes
she wrote herself
and never read.

She looked at Ro.
Her eyebrows pushed together
then pouted, sighed,
before lifting her fingers
pressed against
pearl pink lips
slipping Paul Mall in,
sipping it.

Between each clean breath
she’d say something idle to pass
the time it took to smoke.

Her thick grey hair peaked
from beneath yellow bleach
and she said something silly
about that too.
Her face was smooth and eyebrows thin
but she’d never mention it.

Burned down barely far
from her knuckles,
she pushed the ****
into an ashtray laying
on the arm of stained grey
loveseat.

Simultaneously as she was crossing
her feet she was sweeping
her focus on that chipped black tabled
looking for something…

Then got distracted.

We own a black loveseat
I hear you wonder, “Do you still love me?”
There is no doubt in my touch
I pull you in, night after night
And we never drink alone.

Cup my face, hold my waist
I like the way you ask how I’m feeling

A record humming
Occupied guest room
And small swirls collecting in my chest
Our clasped hands knock down city lights
We take pleasure in the bursting sparks

Cup my face, hold my waist
I like the way you ask how I’m feeling

I’m happy at my day job
But I’m happier with you
You curl into me,
So I don’t wonder about the future.

And we never let go of the black loveseat


…Boston

Me at that oak table
Sitting on that couch
There in that room
of what was then
Our house

You on the loveseat
There by my side
We then together
in grandeurs
warm light

There is where
the good the bad
and the beautiful
transpired

Supposing all the tomorrows
were held within Our hand
The days then were precious
Now sadly never again

As I remember
how it all went
I think of you
lovely as an Angel
from Heaven sent

My eyes cannot see
through all of the tears
Thinking back on
the best of of Our life
of those most wonderful years

Since you've been gone
I must you then now tell
I'll see you in Heaven
because I've already
been there in Hell.

-R.

11.27.17
-LA
-4MAR

Some hours later, night having fallen over Lisboa, It was Clara who sat in the loveseat while Ta'ra was asleep. Simon kept graveyard hours, partly from work, partly from an ingrained watchfulness that only ever left him in the small hours before dawn. So it was a usual occurrence for the two woman to sleep and wake and find him still active and awake, cooking or writing or at work, sometimes just staring aimlessly at the skyline of the Almafa. Clara was speaking of her loves and loyalties to him, no guitar for her though. Her gifts were the brush and her voice, both of which had always held a power over men. Her life had been one of passions only half felt, half lived, an object to be possessed by those she enraptured with a whisper in the ear or a sketch on a napkin.
"You speak of passion with such...disdain. As if it's something one could do without and be better off..." He looked up at her from the tile floor of the balcony where he was sitting crosslegged like some aesthetic. She smiled her full, rich smile down at him and then turned away, knowing this was a man she had tried to conquer, and failed. She had known he couldn't be swayed the way most were the first night in Tangier while waiting for the ferry. It had been her intention to barter passage from him for what most men think of as passion. Instead he brought them both to his apartment here as roommates, gotten papers for them, helped them start a life that wasn't that of a hunted thing. "Passion is a weakness that brings us away from ourselves, and presents us to someone else's lusts and wants and needs. In the end, we give all we have, and are emptied of life," she whispered, more to herself than Simon. He sighed as one who isn't sure whether he should speak or not. "You say that, and yet I'm attracted to that word, its implications, its many meanings to us. What you think of as passion is so different from what I think of it as, or Ta'ra for that matter." Clara gave a sharp ha! as response, as if she could divine something we mortals were ignorant of. "Isn't that what you two share," he asked, "passionate love? For eachothers' bodies? Your souls? I hear the two of you, envy it sometimes you know. I haven't been lost within someone completely like that in a very long time." Turning back and staring at him hard before speaking, she slowly and precisely told him that he would never understand what that really was between the two women, because he was a man.

Home is in
The cramped spaces
Where couch and loveseat
Fill a room
Where the kitchen
Doesn’t fit
More than two people
And the dishes
Cleaned by hands
Of my mother
Smoking menthol cigarettes

Home is in
The cheap plaster
Walls so thin
You hear
A thousand tragedies pass through
At night when you are sleeping
Babies crying
Mothers crying
Everybody crying
No one happy makes a sound

Home is in
This endless wheel
Of poverty sickness
No one asked for
Or wanted
On welfare
Selling loose cigarettes
Forty ounce malt liquor
Six packs
Emptied
Friday’s hunger

Home is where
Old ladies rent
Single bedroom units
With no air conditioning
Alone with
Endless birdfeeders
And white bread
On the lawn
Out the window

Home is where
Hardwood floors are scarred
With rearrangement
Constant variation
Definitions shifting
Under orange parking lot
Floodlights
Obscuring night’s blessing

Home is where
I see into the lives
Of a thousand strangers
Never talking
Where children play
Identity games
In the park

Home is in
The Christmas lights
Strung on the windows
Carelessly by neighbors
Or in the wreath
My mother hangs
To signal autumn

Home is
Buttered bread and noodles
When there’s nothing else to eat
It’s a movie
You’ve seen a thousand times
And still laugh at

It’s the clothesline
My grandfather strung up
In the basement

It’s the gangs of children
That secretly run the streets

It’s in the identical faces
All spilling light
Out onto the pavement

Home is not a place
It is a collection of universes
All spilling into one another
Mixing in infinity
Blending forms

Home is the embarrassment I felt
When we turned onto my street
And the realization that
I’ve got it better than anyone I know

Home is where the world ends
And where we are all secretly trying
To get back to

waiting in the apartment, sitting on the low loveseat
windows of right before the eyes,
a mirror of what encircles this piece of home
entrance, shy and half-innocent
"you look swell," will you stay for long?

-cj

A glass of wine at sunset
and a cigarette.
He's drinking for two,
though it's only he who's there.
Through the window glare
he's looking at the loveseat
where his love would sit unhappily
as devotion drove her quickly mad.
He had her - all of her - once.
Her eyes of emerald, chestnut hair,
fair skin paired with dark garments,
and the smell of sweet lavender,
like a smoke, clinging to a broken memory, a stale picture tucked into a drawer that doesn't open anymore.
Yes, he has his wine, his cigarettes,
his sunset to help him forget.
But tomorrow he will feel it all again. When the sun rises, the bottle is empty, the cigarette burns out, the heart relives its pains
and reaches for what is lost.

i. Prodigal daughter


I flew out my mother as a prophecy.
An oracle, a sinner; girl in the wrong
place at the right time. Not who I was
supposed to be. Scripture on my arms,
coating the back of my throat, words
I’ve never wanted to read.

I crawled out my mother’s womb
with a ****** cough:
Grandmother’s handkerchief.
Some letters.
No name. Not mine.

I carried myself out my mother’s soul,
hands stained red with prayer,
legacy shattering a baby’s spine,
bearing the sin of
prophecy.

She’s always told me,
You never cried.

ii. Menace


I bury my teeth in the backyard
to stop myself from biting back.
I have a few left up in
sore bleeding gums,
burning softly
and waiting
for the day
I will speak.

A demon somewhere in
the dirt runs its fingers
down my forearm.
There are bones
molting along
with feathers. I am
buying bigger
band aids these
days: they wrap
around my arms
as vines left in
the sun to rot.

Crows
wait on my windowsill
to make sure I am okay.

But I am a burning woman
settled in the wallpaper. I’m
sure my eyes are yellow again:
I cry as she paints, sealing my
body up in the floral silhouette.
This house is as haunted
                                         as me.

The demon has an alibi.
Liar, it spats.


iii. Flight of the wolves  

Moon takes me by the hand. Some
ancient light. Howls in the distance.
I dance through the edge of forest
wishing they would utter my name.

Moon calls out this time, urging me
to step closer. I prowl out to
the real world, greeted by snarls.
I bite at the air, our feral eyes
sliding into one another's.
Before I can
escape we are already
running.

The moon watches us:
In all our inhuman
humanity. we rush
through leaves and
spoiled mud, running
against ourselves
and bleeding stars.

fading as nothing
but hungry dogs
into the night.

Here, they whisper. Eat.


i.v. By the fireplace

I have never wanted touch
like this. They gather me
into their arms, one by one.
Something mysterious lingers
in the air, like an old cup of
tea. I feel as if I have swallowed
someone else’s sun, whole. I
do not let myself think of
prophecies. I cannot let
my spine feel it,
either. I want them
to stay.  

Fire has his hand in my mouth.
But I refuse to scream. Months
gather on, and I assimilate to
the fire and embrace. I’m
mumbling of prophecy
in my sleep. Bones
tremble as they realize
we’ll never know
what’s coming
next.

The future leads me to
a lavender loveseat
for just me alone.

Fire takes his hand
from my mouth
briefly, with pity
and permission
to breathe. They
wander, picking
dust and dirt from
my hair.

Oxygen tickles the
roof of my mouth,
and I realize the
settled words have
faded away. I am
warm now, despite
my barefoot stance
in the dirt.

I’m sorry, Fire mumbles. I had just hoped to help.


v. Town fair memory

They find me by the craft table
breathing in an elixir of sunset.
Shadows tiptoe around my adolescence.
Maybe they are all my first loves.
Is this a family? I’m not entirely
sure if they’ll stick around once
they find I am drenched in
divination and sweat.

Three ghosts drift across the market
and I make some sales. I wondered
what a ghost would do with coffee,
if taste and touch were really
connected.

Hours live on, and fireflies
beat against paper cups
and strong-willed
children.

l on the cooling blacktop
with my friends. The sky is pink
but not as warm as us, and we can see
the stars from here:
I have no
intention on
waking up from today.

Scars morph into smaller divets, like
scratches of clairvoyance against
ancient
oracle bones.

They drive me to an artist in a
city cottage. It’s okay, I am reassured.
She will not hurt you here.
Leaves run down the walls.
Water speaks in some foreign tongue.
I feel oddly safe. We cover up my
prophecy, which was never real to begin with.
Prophecies are a sin, of course. And though
we have transformed from monster to human
and back again
I might be the biggest sinner of them all.

A distasteful monster
hellbent on some
halfway
lack of legacy
to pass on for
generations.

I did cry, I tell myself. But I think we will be okay.
Girl, the demon whispers;
Child, the moon sighs;
Live! They cry.

And Fire says
nothing
from
his place
between our
hearts.

no longer aspiring for greatness, simply aspiring to find the middle ground

i think what hurts the most is that i have been holding onto memories of you longer than you ever held me

this isn’t appropriate or necessary but for the past 3 years i have been aching for an another intoxicated text that would tell me i came up in a conversation

how can i rewrite a goodbye in terms either of us can cope with?
let’s blame the weather or the medication or the elephant politely sitting on the loveseat or the piles of ***** laundry
we can’t keep meeting like this