another night of youth
wasted.
on the walk from the bars we kicked rocks and whined aloud
at the fickleness of our latest crushes. stewing over the injustice of it all.
my porchlight was tucked into the alley you'd continue down;
we'd reach it in a few more dark jokes,
wave, smile,
shout good wishes to the sound of my turning key.
i don't know who said something first;
i don't know if we said anything at all.
only that suddenly there was the flavor of your grin
the rough of five o'clock shadow pushing three am.
it was all so luxuriously simple,
so naturally unfussy -
we'd loved others before
we'd love again but for now
we were sticking middle fingers up and tongues out to Big Lonely.
fingertips swirling conspiratorially across thighs,
lips playing house against collarbones;
the assuaging breaths between bouts
hanging from the corners of the room, our canopy of relief.
there was the smallest sense of wrong in how right we blended,
stunning how we dissolved one another into puddles then giggles -
a spice i relished as i fancied myself recklessly daring.
i wasn't of course.
falsely audacious about everything,
i bet safe; i bet you.
because in even the smallest of things, you treasure - that's what i'd love about you
for years to come
as we each went about our lives, the easiest semisecret i've ever kept
(it was too fun to watch our friends' jaws drop, who could resist)
all of it
faded
so far into the distance now
nothing but depth patinaed into dark joke filled reunions.
Tag: love
-
immersion.
-
electricity.
a heavy evening rain rose as a loaded fog,
cloaked us like a dimming theater light.
grateful for an excuse to hush under the guise of proper manners
we sat shoulder to shoulder, our eyes focused safely in the distance,
unsure exactly the show to follow but knowing with certainty
that it was starting.
just for the fun of it, i turned your smile over in my lap until it softened,
bated your breath,
sparked flint against the base of my own spine.
i fancied an impossibility
that this moment was inevitable, found myself shuffling through versions
of the vastly different people we could have arrived to it as.
after all,
what were we but shoe boxes full of trading cards shelved at our childhood homes,
each bearing our face with different uniforms, records?
what more had we done to reach right now but closed our eyes, stuck our hands in, and plucked one out?
i thought
how easy it is, to burn a box of cardstock.
the plastic coating would add an edge of stubbornness
clinging to its former form
before giving way
curling into a puff of black smoke.
-
-
eclipse.
in hindsight, almost none of the words i wrote during him were beautiful. i think of him as an eclipse as some suspension of time where (arrogant in his impenetrability, preoccupied by his victory, basking in the surety of my retention even as i flared from every edge) he forgot: even stifled, warmth can be sensed. light seeks light. impermanent by definition, his incredulousness was delicious as his last sliver slipped back into the blackness - as he began to wane as i broke as i rose
musée 