Midnight moon, she

used to come

with such exuberance

as if it were the start of the day
or at least
an adventure
that we could write off
together
as stories to the midnight sky.

And then

so quickly

too quickly

the midnight moon hailed
a darkness of night
new
like a succubus
preaching familiar words
with an unfamiliar hate
ready to absolve you
of your daily sins
if only you give in to the temptation
of *****-soaked venom
that she promises
the sun
will sanitize.

And the sun, he
never does.

He just
basks you in last night's
mistakes, keeps them
warm and cozy for your reveries
and casts his heat
as a reminder

you cannot escape
the moon, for her light source
is the sun

and midnight comes
inevitably.

it is okay
that you are
tired
if it is okay
that i am
sad

your eyes
when you look at me,
they are hard
to describe.

they do not
squint, they do not
harden, they do not
narrow, they

somehow tighten but
in mirth, yet
still with sadness, and
it's sadness at me

as if i give you
Joy and Pain
as burdens to bear
as a gift unexpected
but necessary, once
you understood the undertaking,
accepted its presence.

not quite a
white elephant
but almost.

and your eyes, they almost
overbrim with kindness, and so
i must worry
that maybe you are sad
because you see
that soon
you can no longer be kind to me.

maybe the Joy brought
the mirth but
the Pain brought
the sadness and
maybe you are saying
the bargain-basement version
of The Words to me
because you know that to say
anything more
will make the future parting
that you have planned
more
depressing
than having not heard the words
at all.

and maybe you could carry
both the Joy
and the Pain
for a while, but soon
they will become
too heavy.

and you will lighten your load
by gifting me back
to the world that gave me to you.

Fangs aren't required
to tear into meat.
Blunt teeth and hidden molars
do just fine.
It may take more
chewing,
more mulling over
the dead thing
in your mouth,
but eventually
you will savor and devour it,
and swallow it down,
forgetting after the last gulp
about the life you just
consumed.

I pretend like I keep watch
over the lion cubs
for their sake
and maybe
I do
but maybe I want
the tiger
to notice me
instead

we write poetry
in different
languages,
yours in
music
and mine in
pain

did you know
blood
is bright red
if it seeps
from the skin?

i quite enjoy it.

why don't
you want
to hang out with me
she says
jokingly
knowing she wouldn't want
to hang out
with herself

If the water sweeps
the way song does
and I greet the water
with hesitance,
but yet,
get so swept up
that I neglect
to disrobe,
is it the fault of the water,
that I
forgot its power?

Perhaps immersion
was my intent,
and so I went quietly,
after echoing, to you,
the virtue that is among us
but was so overwhelming to me
that I could not bear
to shed my clothes
to keep afloat.

I tried to get
a library card
tonight.

For a bit of back story
(not that anyone
asked for it)
I had a tough
few
years.

And I moved away
and then back
and then away
and then back
and then away
again
and then
back
and that's
where I am.

So tonight
I tried to get
a library card.

They told me
to bring along
a letter, addressed
to my current address,
and my identification
card.

So I did.

I brought along a letter,
addressed to me,
from The Community College
of Philadelphia,
letting me know
I was admitted to their
honors program
based on my grades.

(I had taken the letter off the wall,
where my little brother
hung it up,
because all of the other siblings
had achievements hanging
on the fridge,
and he didn't want me
to feel
left out.)

So I went to the library,
with my honors letter
from The Community College
of Philadelphia,
and I asked them
for a Library Card.

They glanced at
the letter,
and said
nothing.

And they didn't even ask
for my identification card
(which would have had a different
address, a way to indicate
I didn't live my whole life
in a bubble
in one house
on one street).

And they entered my name
into the system.

And it turns out,
I'm still there,
in the system.

And I owe
Twenty One Dollars,
owed from
Two Thousand Eleven.



And then I left
and I went to a bar
and I drank.

Because if the public library
of the suburbs of Philadelphia
can't forgive me
for my sins,
why should I?

it's like
no one likes
me
so why should
i like
myself

It is
a nor'easter, and
I watch as
the heavy raindrops fall
and the icy winds
turn them into
snow
before they hit
the ground,
and accumulate
like a hurricane
that they did not wish
to be a part of,
and yet, they're stuck
in a mountain of snow
they did not know
was coming
and had no way
to escape it
so now they are stuck
in a snow bank and
they must wait
until everything
melts
and they must melt
with it
and no one will ever know
they were here
and they did not wish
to be a part
of the storm,
they did  not wish
to be destructive,
they did not wish
to ruin
everyone
else's
day,
they just were

and

they are sorry
for
existing.

Buzzed, I meander
to the front porch, waiting
for my ride
to pick me up.
My mother, coming in
from gardening, hands me
a freshly picked
bundle of lilacs.
"Here," she laughs,
friendly,
"I bet these smell better
than cigarette smoke."

Laughing, I take them
and agree,
not wanting her
to hang around
and smell more
than cigarettes.

My ride comes quickly.

And when I return,
a half hour later,
the lilac buds are closed,
wilted in the absence
of a bush to grow on
or a vase to dwell in.

Who knew flowers
could die
so quickly.

I wanted to put them
in water.

I can give you balloons
filled with exhaled
oxygen.
They look pretty
in pictures
but they don't
float.

I have a squid in my belly
and she likes to be fed
filtered cigarettes
and whatever *****'s on sale.
When she's good
I'll treat her with
a couple lines off the table,
but I never use mirrors
because she's never good
until two in the morning
when she's all liquored up
and I'm not looking my best.
These days I'm pretty fed up
with her *******, because
sometimes she'll stretch a tentacle
through my esophagus
and pry open my painted lips
and reach out to whoever's closest
and go for their neck.
I try to swallow her back down
to protect everyone
but she's a tough broad
and it's hard to tame a creature
when you're not sure
where she ends
and you begin.

they tell me
not to think about
what ifs, and
they tell me
i should focus on
myself, but
they don't get
that's exactly what
i'm doing,

because

if something
happens, i need to
brace myself.
they tell me
they will be there if
i hurt, but
i tell me
i will be alone,
so alone.

Curing my depression
cured my alcoholism
which cured my creativity
which cured my happiness
which cured my sobriety
and then nothing

"You're on your way
to the grave,"
he sighed,
caressing her breast
and nuzzling her skin.

"We all are,"
she murmured,
and shoved him aside
as she raised herself off the bed
and turned to leave him behind.

He lept from the sheets
and grabbed her long hair,
yanking her to the mattress
before she could escape.
Climbing on top of her,
he stared at her body
and ate her soul with his eyes
until she had none to consume.
He slowly leaned down
and drank in her weak breath,
exhaling it out in a strong sour kiss.
She trembled, and then,
she could tremble no more,
and learned not to breathe,
and grew silent as he thirsted.

He cut the quiet
with a snicker,
and flashed a wicked red grin,
whispering into her dull lips,
"But I know a shortcut."

I passed a woman
walking her dog,
and I smiled at her,
and she didn't smile back.
And as I walked on, I realized
I never really smiled.
Just parted my dry lips
in an O.

I looked to my feet
and saw an earthworm,
lying in the middle
of the sidewalk.
Dead and dried
from the sun.
And I thought to myself,
He is so exposed.

And I heard a dry laugh,
and it was my own.

I have forgotten
how to kiss,
but might revisit
making love
to the switchblade
in my purse.

Everything smells like cigarette smoke,
and nothing smells
like the butterflies in my gut.

But strangers like the camels I smoke.
So I purge my nervous stomach
onto the blank canvas in front of me;

and I bathe myself in nervous applause,
while my insides
wrestle with the snake left in my belly,
never to be seen
by the audience, because
lovers don't like that.

I forget what I wanted to write about.

I forget because I'm cold,
and I'm on the front porch
of my parents' house while they're both asleep.
Because they know I smoke, but
I don't like to rub it in. Like,
"This is what you've taught me to avoid!
And this
is all I rely on!"
And that's all I hear.
And I don't want them
to hear that.

And I forget
what I wanted rely on,
but when I think about it,
it sounds like music notes in my head,
and there's no way you can hear the song,
because it fades in the distance
(on a minor chord)
when I toss the cigarette ****
into the ivy, where my parents won't see it
as a constant reminder of how
I fell so hard.

So you can't hear what I hear.
And I can't really hear it either,
but when I wake up
in the afternoon
on my parents' couch,
all I know is
there's something I should be listening to,
and maybe it's the wisps of my dream,
or maybe it's something bigger
I can't quite grasp, but,
I should hear it.
And I can't.

So, at two PM, I fall back asleep,
trying to hear it again.
Or maybe, I wake up,
and wander around wearing oversized clothes
and wait to put on deodorant unless
I go outside,
and until then, I eat everything in the house
until I feel satisfied
and I never will.

I've been paid to pour sticky-sweet
dancing-juice down the throats
of men who can't afford
a ******
but want the salt of Bourbon Street
on their tongues when they wake up.
I've stumbled up to my door,
dropping the keys and loudly spitting out a
"Shh!"
to myself, to retain some sense
of dignity.
I've woken up with an army in my head,
shouts muddled because their leader
has been shot, and all they can do now
is stomp around and
make loud noise and
hurt.

It never hurt as much
as being awake without a hangover
and having nothing physical
to nurse.

I want to move to Portland
because a boy who never loved me
loves the West
and maybe I need to be there
to discover what I don't know I'm missing.

Sometimes you just need a change
while still being wrapped
in the warm blanket of memories
only the quiet end of a friendship
can leave you with.
And Portland isn't New York or Paris–
it isn't an exclamation point,
it's an ellipsis,
and the boy and I died
with an ellipsis.

So maybe I need an ellipsis,
a warm blanket,
the comfort zone of a flight
that lands in an unknown city
that I've never seen before.

But I bet, stepping off that plane,
I'll be able to smell memories
in the crisp, strange Portland air.

You fell asleep, your arm
slung across my middle.
I stayed up with
a cigarette
and Good Will Hunting playing on TV.
You would shuffle around
in your sleep, but with every movement,
you kept your hand
curled around my belly.
Even in your dreams, you were
intimate.

I wiggled into a new position
at one point, and I
almost woke you up.
You startled–
mumbled something in your sleep.
Every word was
incomprehensible, until I heard escape
"I love you, baby."
And it was
brilliant– the innocence
that you sighed
in your slumber.

And I loved you.

The next day, you saw a bike,
***** yellow and
abandoned by its owner.
You straddled the seat and
rode in tight circles.
And all I could think was,
your legs are so skinny.
You were all
skin and bones, pedaling that bike.
All I saw
was you
naked.
More naked than you
had ever been.

And I didn't love you.

"And what my therapist says, is,
she says she thinks you're
****** up, too."

"Well that's great. I'm glad
she didn't bring you up."

"She didn't. And maybe that's why
she didn't
**** Me Up, either."

I don't use paper and pencil now.
My thoughts are too fleeting
to subscribe
to anything but a "delete" key.

You hastily slid my pink thong past my ankles
half an hour ago,
but only now,
when I can feel a stickiness
drip down the insides of my thighs,
am I finally naked.
It dawns on me that I want to tell you something–
something important–
I want to tell you
"I love you,"
before I can pause to wonder if I mean it–
but leftover ***
dribbles out of me
faster than any words can, and suddenly
I am empty again
and have nothing
to say.

Walking down the avenue,
admiring how my cigarette smoke
mingles with the snow.
Gentle wisps rising,
quiet kisses falling,
but they meet midair
to dance.
I could watch this silent beauty
for days, until

a wrinkled old man closing up shop
scowls at me.
"Those things will **** you, lady."

I pause.
Shocked at the sound.

"That's the plan," I mumble,
and clumsily stride away.

The snow keeps falling
but nothing sticks.

Tonight I will dream
that I am
falling.
I will clutch for safety
and grab nothing.
It will dawn on me
that I am
twelve stories high,
and the unforgiving ground
is quickly approaching.
My face to the sky,
I will accept my fate
and brace for impact.
A moment before
I am no more than
a starburst on the pavement–
I will wake.

Gasping for air, strangely
metallic in taste,
I will take a moment
to realize I am still alive.
My eyes will be open, but I will see
nothing but darkness.
My ears will be alert
to nothing but
my dry sobs.
Still paralyzed from the dream,
I will take inventory
of my legs, my arms, my spine,
and only when they are all found in tact
will the air stop tasting
like blood.

Shaking, I will turn blindly
to my left, wanting only
to murmur into your sleepy ear,
"I had a bad dream."
My fingertips will reach
for your shoulder, your back,
eager to trace your warmth
under my palm.
I will know
that the only way to calm my breathing
will be to tell my bones
that you are lying tangent to me,
wrapping yourself around my curves,
so close that if I am
silent, I might be able
to hear your heart beat–
and this will bring me back to life,
for my bones know
that you would never let me
fall.

Tonight, I will dream
that I am
falling.
I will prepare myself
to meet Death.
And I will whisper to you
in the dark, until I remember
my voice cannot carry
a thousand miles in the wind
to where you are sleeping.
So I will close my eyes,
force my chest still,
and wait for the nightmare
to strike again,
knowing it is better
than being awake.

My poetry's only
poetry
because
I can understand it
drunk.

My fingers flit across
ivory keys
like irate flies, landing
for a moment before
restlessly taking off
again – this is not
where I should be,
they say, and
continue searching,
until finally the flies
and I
find a chord, but it
won't come out right, and
I can't yell at any
one fly in particular
because I don't know who
it is that's
******* things up, so
I just keep banging on
this **** monster
of an instrument and there's
anger in the middle
of Debussy, and he never
wrote me anger, it's just
a moment of unrestrained emotion
where it shouldn't be –
I kind of like it
a little – I like all
emotion, because truly,
it's so ******* hard
to come by, but –
it shouldn't be
there, I shout,
in the middle of ******* Debussy,
and now my fingers
are bleeding a bit,
leaving behind pretty little
droplets of a scarlet
me, and Plath called them
redcoats, and I think
that's so much nicer
than what they actually
are – a bright red
trail of mistakes – and
Bukowski said
I should be doing this
drunk, and I
listened, but I'm
no ******* Chuck,
so all I'm left with is
a mess – I ruined
this baby grand piano –
but I can feel my
heartbeat in the tips
of my fingers, the
flies, and maybe someday,
I think, I can put myself
in the music and not have to
bleed all over
the keys just to
see myself in something – maybe
have some restraint,
just enough so that
a meager audience
can't see my blood, just
hear my heartbeat –
the flies' collective
heartbeat – so
I push out my bench and
stand up and stretch
before I walk away from
the piano, leaving
the blood to clean up
tomorrow, and
this is poetry.

I made myself throw up tonight.

It was pretty
satisfying.

A lot of clear, chewed up
liquid
spewed out of my mouth.
I saw it after it
poured into the porcelain toilet

(I closed my eyes
for the feature)

and it was
pleasant, yet fulfilling.

There was a bit of
color to it;
I couldn't tell if it was
the oatmeal cookie
I gave in to, or
the cranberry
I forced upon the *****.
Either way, I liked it.

I've never shoved my finger
down my throat
before.
The results were
gratifying.
Like,
I could control my body.
Beauty.

Beauty,
I said.

Beauty.

(You wouldn't understand
unless you've blessed your
gag reflexes
with a polished fingernail
and received
a purging of
absolute sin
in response.)

death sauntered up to
the bar, a few drinks deep.

what's a pretty little
thing like you
doing in an ugly little
place like this?

i laughed
like it was funny.

i make poor decisions
i said.

why not make
better ones
he asked.

i'm having too much
fun
i lied.

his lips stretched across
his teeth
in a semblance of
a smile. he thought i meant
i'd be a good night's
****.

let's get out of here
he said.

i drained the last of
my empty glass,
slipped my hand into
my empty pocket,
fruitlessly shook
my empty pack of smokes.

they were all full
an hour ago. or
maybe a year ago. you
lose track of time in
an ugly little
place like this.

that's not what i meant
i thought.

okay
i said.

we grabbed our coats and
walked out into
the cold.

Not a display of
sexuality–

a display of
emotional
response.

Tired, I sat on the floor of the shower
and let the water run until
I could feel each individual drop
hit the space between my shoulder blades
like a bullet,
trace the curve of my hunched spine,
and dejectedly slink
to the ground,
where the drain waited hungrily,
ready to swallow all I had to offer,
be it water
or blood.

i slide the paper off the straw, and
the smell of Jack Daniels reminds me of
memories i can't quite
remember

When things were good, they were
weightless.
We could stumble down the streets
at four in the morning,
wearing hickeys like tattoos
we'd be ashamed of at dawn.
Sneaking wristbands from friends
with fake IDs,
or faker ****.
And if we were low on cash,
we might take turns
lifting our shirts, shifting our bras,
until a flash of something sacred
earned a free drink.
I could have been
ashamed
if gravity were working.
But we were all
weightless.
Mistakes just floated away.

Our dresses were too short, and
our dresses were too tight, and
the boys wore shirts
that were good at hiding stains.
Sometimes we didn't even need words;
we could walk into
a smokey, sticky bar
and fall in love with a boy's arms
while he fell in love
with a too-short dress
and the chance to see underneath it.
And we knew
we'd be waking up
with those hickey-tattoos.
But we didn't care, because
we were all
weightless.
The boys just floated away.

Maybe we wouldn't find any
dance-floor-love,
but that was always okay, because
we were in love
with ourselves.
Our hazy heads
whispered pretty words,
and as we burned our throats
with shots of pure love,
pretty words began to slur
into a pretty song, but we could
never remember the melody
when we awoke.
So the next night
we'd shimmy into our too-tight dresses
and start ******* down
more liquid love
until we began hearing
that pretty song again.
We half-knew our sober hearts
would never be able to recall
the tune,
but it never mattered.
We were all
weightless.
Notes just floated away.

These nights, things are
heavier.
I'll pour myself some love,
but it burns like regret now.
I don't wear any too-tight dresses
because I don't much miss
the dance floor.
I don't miss the hickeys
or the four A.M. walks.
I don't miss the shirts
being lifted and pulled.
I don't miss the smoke
flooding the bars.
But I do miss the song
that I'll never quite know.
For though I am grounded,
that tune is forever
weightless,
and the notes will just float away.

We sat.
Thigh flush with thigh.
Such absolute silence, I swore
I could hear our cigarettes burning.
Such absolute stillness, you swore
you could see the world turning.
One arm draped around my shoulders,
you pointed the other
towards the trees, glowing by the stars.
"Look," you murmured, "fall
has finally caught up with us,"
and we stared at
a hint of color–
the leaves had at last begun to blush.

Your quiet breaths whispered
the unspoken words– that soon,
the trees would stand naked.
Your heavy eyelids blinked
a silent message– that soon,
the moon would set, hailing morning.
And my feeble body knew,
in every ache, in every crevice,
in every inch of skin, pound of flesh,
in every frail bone and every drop of blood–

in every touch,
my feeble body knew

the wordless truth– that soon,
the ashes would fall to our feet
and our cigarettes
would gently die.

But at that moment, we sat,
thigh flush with thigh,
and heard no ashes drop,
saw no morning come,
watched no leaves fall,
and pretended there existed
no plane waiting to take me back
to where cigarettes burn
too slowly.

I want nothing
but to write.
To purge my body of
the weakness,
coiling around my stomach
like
Eve's seductive tempter.
To write, before dusk takes over
and I commit
an unoriginal sin.
But the forbidden fruit
smells like bourbon, and
I'm just
so
thirsty.
If I could write–
if I could tell blank paper
of my split soul, hovering
between agony and apathy–
then I could find
what I need.
But words have lost their luster,
stories are just
selfish ***** on pages,
and this pen
is running low on ink.

****.

So I will write my last,
a suicide note
for the dying poet in me,
and pour myself
a round to serve the snake.

I.
The hotel room smelled
of coffee and cigarettes,
a blend that used to mean
mornings, and
conversations,
but now it just reeked of
failure.
She was running, she decided.
That would be her answer
if anyone chanced a friendly introduction
and a pleasant inquiry
as to what a young woman
like her
was doing in Tennessee.
She was running from
The Big Easy,
a city that held
a lot of bad mistakes
and one good one.
Halfway through her journey.
Halfway to Philadelphia, a
nondestination.
Where she could try to piece everything
back together. Contemplate why
she was running from
what might have been.
It was an escape
so desperately needed, but
she knew
she would return.
The south was calling for her,
whispering her name
in between her
silent sobs.
One day,
she would get behind the wheel
of her beat up, run down car
and go back
for the only thing she left behind.
A question.
A chance.
A might-have-been.


II.
Her phone rang.
It was a question. From
The Question.
She answered with a
nonanswer.
She didn't know. It was
too soon.
She sighed.
Dropped the phone, watched it
bounce across a
very empty bed.
Grabbed her purse and felt around
blindly until her hand found
the familiar shape
of a 99 cent lighter and
a pack of Camels.
Went outside
to breathe in more failure.


III.
I can't write anything
here.
I don't know
what comes next.
Maybe tomorrow,
coffee and cigarettes
will smell like
a fresh start
and the first few miles
of a long drive
to New Orleans.
But tonight, they just smell like
a question.

I saw a dead bird
in the middle
of the road.
And all I could think, was,

Why didn't
he fly
away
sooner?

My friend brought over a switchblade tonight.

He warned me that it was
sharp.
But it was beautiful.
Black and sleek, like
a wild horse
you're not allowed to get
too close to.

(Or so I've heard. I don't know much
about horses.)

He was playing with it, flicking it
open, sliding it
shut, tempting
fate.
And one time he pressed a button and the blade
swung faster than I could see,
but all of a sudden
steel made love to skin
and then a painful line of
crimson.

It wasn't even the sharp side, it was
the back.
Dull. It should have been
duller.

He made a face.
Went in the bathroom
to clean up.

While he was gone, I picked up the knife
tenderly.
Thinnest pitch
against the palm of my hand. I ran
metal against my fingertips,
over and over again,
the gentlest touch.
Contemplated pressing
harder.

Just to see the scarlet.
Just to hail
a lovely pain,
so close to your heart you can't even
feel it
until you lift the knife,
blade and blood parting ways.

And then I realized
I was too scared.
Not even nervous, just
scared.

(What an ugly word. Scared.)

I put down the switchblade.

He emerged from
the bathroom.
His palm was still bleeding, and so
we parted ways.
He to cleanse his wounds,
and I to cleanse
mine.

I showed him
too much.
And all I wanted
was to show him
too little.

It's a rainy night,
and it will be
a rainy day.

At midnight,
when humble prayers are offered
to a strange god,
I worship only
stranger skin.

He'll ask me why I'm here.
I'll tell him I don't know.
And that's true in so many realms, but
I'll keep the clichés to myself.
And there might be some
silence.
And then maybe he'll ask
if I've ever hurt myself,
or thought about hurting myself,
which I guess is
the pleasantest way
of asking if I use my cutlery for eating
or for breathing.
And I'll shake my head no
as I subtly turn my arm
face down.
Because that was a younger–
older–
shameful–
proud–
self-sacrificing–
but mostly
self-centered–
me.
And who likes to bring up
Her
in polite company?
So then we'll sit.
Maybe more silence.
He'll start asking questions
I don't really want to answer, but only
because they bore me.
And maybe he'll bring up ***.
Or not, but
we'll end up talking about it,
and he'll read something
into that, like it's
always on my mind, but
it's not.
It's just
the only thing I know how to do.
He won't chastise me,
but he should.
And then someone might mention
school, and ah,
here's the real problem, he'll think.
I'll launch into my grades
and the fact that they barely exist.
And he'll ask me why,
but the most I'll be able
to tell him
is that school just doesn't really
do it for me.
We might talk about that
for a while,
but it'll get old quickly
when all I can repeat
is how apathetic I am,
one way
or another.
So
he'll ask me why I'm here.
And
I'll tell him I don't know.

Sometimes I'll pretend the cigarette smoke
is helium, and I'll
take a drag big enough
to make me
lighter
than
air, and I'll
float away as a sunbeam,
warm and blinding,
but a happy blinding, and I'll
smile down on people I used to know,
but I'm too high to recognize
their faces, and I'll
never have to worry
about expectations
or disappointment
or cancer,
because sunbeams don't get cancer,
they just are.

"O, to be a whirling dervish,"
I think to myself
as I drunkenly stumble to the bedroom
and collapse, naked,
slurring bleary hate speech
to a god
I don't believe in.

Feet sink into wet sand,
the beach's embrace.
Early morning sun,
reluctant
to rise,
shuffles itself up out from
the ocean
and crawls across the blue.
I shield my eyes
and stare at where
the sea kisses the sky,
a horizon
forever out of reach.
A glance down
to where the water laps
at my ankles, teasing me.
Gliding in,
just to
steal out.
Each time a gentle caress,
before the wave
leaves with a whisper–
*"It could have been love."

We made chicken fettuccine alfredo.
I don't really know what food has to do
with death, but
we made chicken fettuccine alfredo.

You spoke of stars,
of incomprehensible numbers.
Of the world, so big,
with people so small.
And I joined in,
laying a perfect descant
above a lustful melody.
We laughed bitterly
about Fate's clichéd cruelty,
you with your
partner
and me with my
plane ticket.
But our laughs complemented each other
flawlessly,
and when my flitting treble
was joined by your playful bass,
the world grew understanding
and I could breathe
a sigh
of relief.

Ocean's surface showed only
tragedy's timing,
but to ourselves we allowed
a sweet smile,
a secret.
Surely Fate,
though Heartache's mistress,
would reform her ways.
Just for us.
For two who never knew they were only
puzzle pieces
until they found
how supernaturally they fit.
Behind our worried eyes
we kept silent the thought
neither of us
truly doubted– that
we
would be Fate's
exception.

And Fate giggled
in the dark, daring us
to try to defy her,
waiting for the opportunity
to prove us wrong.
And with our feet in the sand,
our eyes to the sea,
we heard her
cold mirth,
an empty soprano
brought in with the waves.
Scared, we left.
Gave up beaches for concrete.
Hand in hand, until the memory
of Fate
invaded clumsily. And,
not wanting to anger her,
we refused her
the opportunity
by
never
trying
to defy.