Comforting Sounds

He spoke of a memory immersed in sleep, a touch of comfort the length of her hair flowing over his forearm. She whispered "what are you waiting for?" and he simply pointed out of the window, into the snow.

-

She woke, gathered her clothes, kissed his restless eyes as he slept, and walked out on life as they knew it.

Tomorrow's sunrise is going to be glorious, she thought. That, and everything that will follow.

-

He woke up, staring blindly into the night. Unable to breathe, he clawed at her scent, and burst into rivulets when she wandered too far away.

Festival

There are times when I drop my shoulders

and feel myself fall as a stream of confetti

without the wondrous sense of ecstasy

I can see in the eyes of your child.

And in times like these, I pray

for a gentle soul to sweep me up

and speak of how I wept,

and see a glint in their own eyes.

For what's the point of confetti

If the warmth of laughter remains

absent from our hollows

without a smile to save?

Nothing

There is nothing but

chemistry here

And with that in mind

We have nothing to fear

This applies to

All I hold dear

And with that in mind

All is beautifully clear.

Twilight Sad

I walked till I was tired.

Then I turned around

and walked right back

to a locked door

and a step, calling out my name.

The Light Shall Flicker Out

These are sounds made of the ectoplasmic iterations of a room from long ago, Of tired boots clearing snow off the edge of the mountain, and leaving behind the woes of a weary life.

-

"Sit."

"Don't want to. I've been sitting for the last eight hours. I want a rest."

"That's an awfully odd notion. Staying on your feet to take a break." She took a drag.

"When will you quit?"

"I'm in no rush, my love. Anyway, I smoke maybe thrice a day. I'm not dying any time soon." She flicked the ash out the window.

"I don't care if you die or not. That horrid smell doesn't sit well with me. Not in this house." Harsh words, but sensitivity was rotting in hell. He scraped the icicles off his beard.

"I do beg your pardon, Lord of the Manor, but I-"

"Do NOT patronize me, Laura."

She felt the stale air in the room seethe with his raw unbridled temper. How hard was something as simple as an escape? Having the world at your fingertips inadvertently meant your fingertips are the world, so how could you get away? For the life of her, she could not understand why coming here would make a difference but love was complicity, and she was the ball to his chain.

"Fine. Not while we are here. Now, come, so I may kiss you. And I, for one, do not want to stand."

He looked through her with a muted heat, and she shivered in the cold morning light of the mountains.

"Let me light a fire."

-

They twisted and turned, one way first, then the other. His hot breath soaked her body in sacred sweat, her quiet urging drawing a cloak around his strong shoulders. For just one moment, a single moment that was brilliant, horrifying, ecstatic, resilient, ethereal, their eyes met. The warmth melted her glaciers, and the waves extinguished his flames. Up against the wall, he pushed one last time before they collapsed in a heap. Still tangled in their own limbs, they panted till the embers hid themselves away.

"I want you to kiss me."

Constant Knot

The heart is an organ of trepidation and rage.

We fool ourselves to think love and devotion are its devices. It is far more attractive to falsibly love like a beast than to truthfully seethe as a man.

Oh My

I

Sigh

And say

It's

A

Fine Day.

Light The Lanterns

"I hate the way you smoke."

He exhaled, took a drag, and held it in his lungs. He always saw the smoke as water, rising up a column in laminar flow. If he didn't smoke the way he smoked, he didn't see it, and it didn't feel like smoking.

"Yeah, well. You smoke like a girl."

"....I am a girl."

"....So you are."

He blew out a string of smoke, and felt the wind's fingers push at his hair.

"I like your hair."

"Thank you. I thought you would."

"Hmm."

And so they stood there, staring at each other's feet, listening to the lock stream by, as the sunset turned the water a deeper shade of purple with every passing degree.

Arson

A thousand silences will not scrub you clean.

Toss your husks on for the roast.

When your house burns down to your ankles,

You will find a pail of water,

and think first of your thirst

and cinders will sink to the ocean floor.

This Perpetual Journey

She has a thing for losing things. She also has a thing for jewellery. It follows, of course, that she has a thing for losing jewellery. A nosepin down a drain, or a ring in the sewer, or earrings in the move. Yet she guards heirlooms with her life, holding them deep within the palm of her heart.

She saves them for a stormy night, and a cliff looking over the rocks below. She hopes they will help her find the voices she heard in the autumn, when the nights traded places amongst themselves, and time stretched and turned inside out.

To this day, she looks, but the nosepin, the ring, the earrings, they've all lost shelter in the rains and their mountains in the wind.

Co-Parallel Dimensions

I sleep in a city by the water, with inclines up and down, arbitrarily placed amidst the paved pathways winding through narrow streets. Each night, as I sleep, I walk past our little China Town, where the people work hard, and are always helpful, and make sure your groceries get to you on time. People that I know I do not know greet me as they cycle by, shiny red blurs underneath the weight of blacks, greys, greens, khakis. I walk up a narrow staircase to an apartment I know from my time in New York. How I managed to find it in this coastal slumberville, I cannot say, but it feels like home, so I am glad to share the feeling.

-

She had eyes that made you feel loved, and a heart that made the earth swallow you whole. As he held her tummy to tummy, she still brought to him the smell of the riverbed where they had decided to lose each other to find themselves. He kissed her brow, and settled back on his knees, cradling her cheek to cheek.

"Seven years is a hard stretch of time."

He nodded, still not sure of what he would say. What could he say? That he'd still not found himself? That he was rather better off having found her than looking for himself? He held his peace, and gave it her name every chance he got.

-

I awake, only to be unsure of where I have found myself. The water has chopped and churned itself into a cityscape, dull lights wading through the grey smog of a winter morning. On my bedside table, there sits a note:

"Thank you for everything. You will always be my favourite, even when we're lost at sea."

So I return to sleep, to search the waters for what we've lost.

A Swansong Debut

And what of me?

You can play the audience

as I crumble to my knees

as the weight of this melody

sings to set me free.

The Aah-ness of Things

"There's more."

"More?"

"Yes. So much more."

"Show me when I'm dreaming."

She kissed his eyelids, and told him to fall asleep.

-

It was the most beautiful reverie. I swam through sands and emerged onto the surface, to walk on an ocean's breath. The water was a transparent mirror. I saw dense foliage populated with creatures of immeasurable brilliance, insects crawling with kaleidoscopes flitting from carapace to carapace, an entire colony thrumming as one single organism. Planets spoke to each other, and the satellites danced through astral projections, like children in chase snaking through long halls and corridors. I saw history play itself out in a second, and it let me see everything, that had happened, was happening, would happen. Time had burst at the seams, and my greedy hands grabbed at everything I could take in stride.

I felt a shoulder on my hand, and turned around to face her.

"You like what you see?"

"Darling, this is unbelievable. It throbs in my heart and my head, and it's clawing at my skin, and oh darling, this is such bliss, such euphoria, such..."

"I'm glad you liked it. Sorry."

-

He woke up, and found himself staring at sheets of white cotton. He pushed himself up, looked around the room, and instantly he knew; there was not a single trace of her.

She might as well have never been.

Aqua Lunae

The sun beats down as the breeze flows through narrow gaps in the walls, and the mud beneath our feet and above our heads thrums with the heat coursing through every bead of sweat on our bodies. The spiral staircase turns through the centre, like a spine connecting the skull to the rest of the body.

We wound our way around to the top, and stood, waiting for someone to come, hoping for something to happen.

-

"It's time to leave. It's time we went looking."

He didn't respond, but she understood he understood.

They walked out of the ocean, with not a drop of water rushing back to the safety of its peers. They reached the shoreline, and looked back over their shoulders at the city they'd just left behind.

"Where will we look for her?" For once, he did not think it odd to ask a complete stranger so leading a question.

"Good question. Let's start right here, where we stand. And we'll wind our way inwards."

He couldn't remember how, but he had keys. Those keys had a car. The car found soon enough, the keys returned to their rightful place, they set off.

"It's beyond me to take charge, so why don't you just direct me?"

"It's your city, your girl. Why should I know where to look for her, and why would I care whether you find her or not?"

"We."

"What?"

"You might be in denial, but it is we who are looking for her."

"..."

"Guess you leave me with no choice."

So he drove for half an hour, until he came to a roundabout he couldn't get off.

-

Light slid in from between the slits. It seemed to draw itself to my table. And not much else. Inexplicable as it may have been, I couldn't care. The light was soft, unobtrusive, quietly reverent. Just as well. I continued on with my nonsense on corporate structure, and banking procedures, and legal identities and real identities. When did this have to be done by? Hmm. Couldn't remember. Oh well. A good enough time would be good enough, I thought.

The door opened a sliver. Judging by the light creeping in, it was early in the morning. He strode in quietly, shoulders squared, and sat on an empty chair. (Had that chair been there all that time? I would've noticed it...) Straightening out the creases in his navy suit, he traced a line down one of the grey pinstripes. Fingertips touching fingertips, he sat staring at his shoes.

"They're coming soon."

I nodded, not knowing what else to do or say. Banking peculiarities still swam in my head.

"You haven't got much time left."

I nodded again, and mumbled something about taking care of it, soon as I was done with 'this', whenever that would be. He calmly grabbed the skin of his temples, and began to pull. His skin came loose between his thumb and forefinger, and the mask slid off to reveal obsidian eyes set in an expression with no betrayal.

"Listen, I told you I'd take care of it. There are more important things for me to tend to."

"What do you want me to do for now?"

"You're more than capable of doing whatever it is that needs doing, or, in any case, what you'd like to do. So please, don't patronize me with your pleas for advice, please."

His black pupils kept focus on me, his ears more likely screening the scratching of pen on paper than not. He unfastened the clasp, and begin to put his helmet on.

"They'll be here, and we'll have to do something."

"What do you suggest we do, eh?"

He sat there, still in his navy suit with the grey pinstripes, and the brown shoes, now with the face of a frog.

"Timeflies. I'll eat them all."

He rose quietly and left the room, leaving me to the flight of time and the silent doting of the light of dawn.

No one could hear their SOS

and no one could ever care less

of two creatures laid to rest.

Screaming.

And then...

Silence.

Rhetoric

Black hides the blue. A man ruins a woman ruining a man, as we all sit in circles and feed names to secret eyes, in the hope that we see sacred songs in the mirror before we sleep at night.

Post

"You should see the way this girl talks."

"What's there to see?"

"It's a spectacle."

"Don't think I need a girl to enjoy a spectacle."

"But these performances are ruthless."

"Stop walking around the fire, will you?"

"It's what she says. It's her words. They're like knives."

"Am I supposed to be intimidated? That's not an entirely unsavoury situation for me."

"But she's unlike anything you've ever thrown yourself into. This isn't some sugar-honey whose skin you can crawl under and then charm your way out of. She means business."

"....Okay."

"Imagine you walk in, and you're a solid block of wood. By the time she's done, you're left carved out, like some abstract piece of modern art."

"Modern art's such bullshit."

"And that's exactly how she'll leave you feeling."

"...Sure. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks."

"Don't take this lightly, man. I'd never kid you about it. She'll make you wish you were in a tank of piranhas, anything just to be away from her."

"I've had enough of this."

"Suit yourself..."

-

She was something else. Black single-shouldered maxi dress, velvet, worn under short-cropped hair. She sat there, smoking a cigarette in its holder. Classy, like some bombshell. Straight from a 30's film noir. Not in the mood to socialize, he didn't think of anything to say, but took the vacant stool beside her, and waited for the barman's attention. He thought he felt her eyes on him, but put it down to paranoia. Goddamnit, he thought, why has that bullshit warning left me so unnerved? He pushed aside the thought, and asked the waiting barman for a gin and tonic.

"Gin and tonic? What are you, a girl?"

He tipped the waiter and sat staring into his glass.

"Gets a girl's drink, and can't even have it."

Ignore it, he told himself, and took a swig of his gin.

"Just as well. Not like you have balls."

"I want a divorce."

-

Finally. He was crawling out of the chrysalis. She would save him soon enough.

Debutante

She took hold of my arm in the middle of a busy street, only to tell me I didn't have to stop wearing my cologne simply because she had left. I looked this stranger in the eye, and without a glaze of passing recognition, mumbled a thank you. I didn't know what else to say.

-

Remember those nights?

What nights?

You knowwwww. Stop teasing me.

I know a lot of nights. I don't know which nights you know, and which you don't.

The park. The lake. Late sunrises, Early sunsets. We'd start our fires when the sun left its office, and hide them when it walked back in.

Hmm. We were so young.

We were so young. And we both spoke 5 languages to strangers, but only one in common.

And we'd make friends...

You mean you'd make friends.

Well, it was us by the lake.

Yes. But you did the making, be honest. I just helped with the keeping.

Hmm.

But anyways. We'd join the stars with lines, like dots in a child's playbook. Our shapes always cut each other. You'd see a bear, I'd see a teapot. And we'd pretend the trees spoke to us. And we'd give them names, and

Yes, yes. What about those days?

.....I wish you still loved me.

I do.

Not like that.

Yes. not like that.

Then how?

I don't know.

Tell me when you do.

-

I didn't know how. So I never told her. She tired of waiting for an answer, and decided to go looking for it.

-

I know now what that love is like. You've shown me what it's like. I wish you could come back now, so I could tell you.

Swell

This hissing rain is unable to drown the sound of her sobbing, as it is unable to hide the salty trail of her tearmarks, just as the jungle she finds herself in is unable to hide her from the world. The forest throbs with intensity, and her heart throbs somewhere in faraway roars of thunder.

The soaked white cloth clings to her mocha skin. She shivers from the cold, and shudders from the core of her loathing. She looks to the verdant roof of her world, and wonders if she'll be homeless, come the fall. They wouldn't look for her, not yet. When she had nowhere to run to, they'd drag her somewhere she didn't want to be, just when she'd think it okay for her to be where she was.

"Come and get me, if you dare!"

The scream echoed in the hollows of her bones, and the trees and the bees shouted back at her with the same vigour. In silence, through the dense shelter, she caught note of a whisper streaming in, and hid herself tangled in knots.

"Stay, beautiful. We're almost here."

Here, We Lay Forgotten

the moon falls, and the only thing you see for miles is your shadow cast upon the city of shame. Your city, your shame. It's been, what now? hours? days? weeks? Empty to the brim. Empty sex, empty bottles, emptiness pouring forth. Empty reflections caught in the mirrors of the disco globe. Empty with endless nights, fuelled by desire, drinks, the want of a good time. Nights that were there, but you can't place them for the life of you. Bare attempts to find something to hold on to, something to make yours, and make yourself a part of. You hear their voices, them telling you it's okay, it's not worth it, it's inevitable, it's going to happen when it's going to happen. But you only listen to your heart. and Your heart says enough is enough. This is not you. This is not what you want. You're strong, you're free, you're the single most important thing to you. You'll hold your head up high, and you'll shed the skin you've been wearing to bathe the world in your glow. You will get what you want, and you will need not fight with it. It will come to you, golden platter borne. You shake the demons out of your hair, and you step into the warm summer morning.

and so, you take your first steps towards love.

Axolotl

Life is meant to be lived at right angles. We have to form the perfect intersections, so our lifestyles can be sold. There's people looking through the windows, looking as they walk along the beach, cobalt diamonds shimmering besides the burning sand. It's a hot day, even in the shade. The lights go out, and no one chose to live the way they could if they would be me.

We have to run inside. It's hilarious, really. We're running, but we don't know who to, what from, or why. But it's funny when we're running, and jumping, and skipping, and in love. So we do what it takes to make us laugh. Breathless, we stop at the couch, and pant at each other.

Clutching her hair, I tell her to stay right there. Suppressing a giggle, I tell her the kids are in the back, and we're about to go to the beach. It's all so damned ridiculous, really, but they're waiting. And then, I can't sit on the couch anymore. I can't breathe. I need air. I need to know that windows are not mirrors, and left is not right.

She calls me back. I tell her to stay put. To not panic, so I can stop panicking, and get back to hold her hands. The kids, I tell her, think of the kids. And then I laugh. There aren't any kids, not yet at least.

"No, not the beach. Let's take them to Disneyland."

I shake my head, and laugh. "There is no Disneyland, baby. We HAVE to go to the beach. It's right there."

She titters. I am drenched, and the water's 10 miles from where I am. The kids are still in the back.

I can't stop shivering.

The Third Bar

As she scratched, the band fell into the hole in his back.

She left with echoes of freedom reverberating down his spine, and the shirt she'd forgotten to pick for him to wear.

I came home, desperate to clutch at your feathers

you left me with a choice: sandpaper, or an icepick.

I know we're pretty tired,

and I know we're pretty old,

but you could've said goodbye to me

before you hit the road.

On second thought, it matters not

if you choose to go, or stay.

From where you're standing, I can see

I've lost you either way.

Closest

These slings they slung, they've tangled me up,

and I'm strung up, high, and hung;

I'm floating, tied to azure skies,

Peering down from up above.

and I've gone searching for your mirrors

in the tattoos of your name,

in candid nights of silent joy,

in the closets of our sacred shame.

As the moon draws us closer yet,

As the night sky eats the sun,

and the lights come out of hiding,

and our bodies join, as we come as one.

Morning draws us shadows and we fall,

frozen hands cracking on frozen floors,

as our lovers come to take us home,

led astray through alien doors.

Stretching For Something (Out of Reach)

"You remember those days?"

I nodded. It was an era ago, maybe seventeen years, but that didn't matter. We had been together that summer, him and I. There were others. They didn't matter.

He hugged the glass with his fingers, kissed the whiskey with his lips, and wept like a child lost.

"Yeah, those were the days."

He might not have heard my words over his hollow, racking shudders, but he didn't need to hear them. Seventeen years, and we had carried on. As if nothing had happened. As if no one suffered for it. Seventeen years, and the silence killed us while we laughed, and danced, and drank, and lied, and cheated, and played as if nothing had happened. Why weren't we afraid of what we had done?

"Enough." He wiped his tears away, and downed another shot of whiskey as he stood up to go. He looked me in the eye, and crumbled through the doorway, as the wind swept him into his car. The horns announced his departure when the tree stood firm in his way. I stood there shivering, in the cold without a friend.

Act Appalled

The truth, my darling, is that you never loved me. The truth, my little angel, is that you were too caught up in your own skin to hear the words pouring out of my ears. The truth, my love, is that you wanted the truth for yourself.

And now you have it.

The truth is, my dear, that I do not love you. I never did. I refuse to. The truth is that we will never know the truth in its entirety. The truth, my life my heart, is that we fell out of love the moment we rolled out of bed that first morning we spent together at your house, when your parents were away, and all I knew how to cook was scrambled eggs. The truth, my filthy little sexpot, is that the filth of our mouths only shows shades of the filth that lies content in our hearts. The truth, my raunchy ravishing princess, is that when I move inside you, I feel you move throughout me. The truth, my innocent child, is that I am so lost in you, that I wouldn't be able to see an exit through the webs we've spun ourselves inside each other, even if it were clearly marked with red neon signs, and they gave us little pathlights to let us know we're getting closer, that we're standing at the edge of salvation, and all we need is one. tiny. nigh-insignificant. little. shove.

The truth, my dear, is that the salt of our tears has kept us afloat all this time, and I for one am tired of flailing my arms in this puddle we're so adamant is an ocean.

The truth, goddamnit, is that I hate myself for loving you. The truth is that I cannot stop loving you. And I won't stop loving you. So I might as well leave for a while.

I left your ribbon tied to the front door. You need it more than I.

-

He decided to stay in his place, and spend the rest of the day skipping stones across the shimmering surface of the empty lake.

Memorial Day

She screens the smoke through elegant lashes and tracks the line with her eyes, before tracking it with her nose. She remains still through the rush. There's static on the radio, and the curtains are stained with spilled wine and nicotine. She feels moist, but her face is foam, unfeeling, unfettered. She doesn't know this face, but it licks her ear, and strings attach to hooks buried deep in her navel. Her hand reaches down to grab a hold of life, as his reaches in for warmth. Blood rushes up and rushes down, and she feels bare in between, spread so thin. The tongue is now in her mouth. On her tongue. It is her tongue. It is their tongue. There is no tongue; just empty space, that feels like a tongue. There is no feeling; just an empty tongue-like space. In the dark, her eyes swallow the sound of the sun, and spit joy unto the shadows of yesterday.

She sidles down, still holding on to him. I was born to be a glove, she giggles to herself, and if the glove fits... Well. It could fit a few different dozens, so she'd try them all to find the right one. But that can come later, she thinks to herself. We come now.

Hours pass as he continues to fill her. She watches him disappear, she watches the truth dying in her eyes. She comes, and morning enters her bed, and heavy footsteps ring in the corridor. He stops in the frame, and asks how her night went.

She honestly says she cannot remember, but she doesn't want to forget.

He reads his lover some letters

While she sleeps and dreams of never.

Toes in the Sand

He felt a warmth when he buried himself up to the neck, water filling his little dugout. She thought him crazy, thought him brilliant, thought him her own. He was such a beacon of pride and joy. He had the answers to all her questions, and wisdom beyond the exuberance of those blue eyes. When he would dig himself out and lay his head in her lap, she would play with the salt-stained hair, as he lay silent, his arms wrapped around her waist. Life had a way of turning idyllic, when the moment called for it.

He remembered a time when she was taller than him. Back then, she'd pick him up on her back as the tide crept in to whisper in their ears, and he'd laugh as the icy fingers of the rolling waves tickled him. When they jumped out and he let go, he would kiss the bruises where he held on too hard, and she'd play with his hair, or distort his face.

Now, she laughed at his youth, and contented to sit on the beach to watch him keep it. Under her watch, he was 7 again, and she was all too happy that it stay that way.

"Sis? Sun's gone down. The chill's drifting in."

"Hmm. Hey, Alf?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

He nodded, and kissed her on the temples. As he took their stuff to the car, she watched the last rays of the sun pan out over his shoulders, and felt his warmth stay to ward the chill away.

Clutch

Light catches her face, and she starts crying. She wanted many things; love, happiness, contentment, peace, excitement. She wanted, most of all, to be understood. To be recognized for who she was. What she was. In the shadows of London's dusk, she'd refuse to take abuse lying down. And yet, here she was.

So this is what all the fuss is about. Life, at 21, at its zenith. You're looking down over yawning possibilities, and jumping from puddle to puddle, choosing splashes as they erupt. A step in the wrong puddle is nothing to cry over. It's just something you learn from. So there's more puddles to jump in.

Until you jump in quicksand. Escape is no longer an option.

Awash

"My, how you've grown."

The fire in her eyes swayed gently, as she took another sip of her sparkling wine. Growing up wasn't a choice she made. It just happened. She didn't think she deserved credit for something she didn't do. She whipped her hair over her shoulder, and continued to stare into the space above her plate.

"I always had faith in you. Even when you were just a silly little girl, I knew you'd come through."

She couldn't decide whether it was sweet of him, or patronizing. She was sure he grew up too, much in the same way she had. His laughter was no longer silly. It was hollow, and leaden. No. He hadn't grown up how she had. He'd grown far more, far too much. For the first time, she found concern swilling amongst the bubbles. She said nothing.

"You know...Some people grow, and some people don't. And before they do, it's always hard to be sure of who will, and how. But you're just...astounding now. Simply being around you makes me feel...Proud? Blessed? Lucky."

She had never seen his tears. And now, as they streamed down, his hands trembled, and his body shivered, and he looked sorrier than she'd thought possible. What a wreck, she thought with shame. What had happened to this marvellous young man, this man who fought for her, who fought her for her own sake. He was so certain, so confident, and so correct, she recalled. She was lost. How do I fix this, she thought wildly as she ran through a thousand ideas in her mind.

"I....I'm sorry. I just...I've....I'm embarrassing you. I'll leave. I'm sorry."

-

What a fool you are, he scolded himself. There were people there. They were watching. She's going to feel so exposed, so pressured. You FUCKING Idiot. What is this envy? You should be proud. Like you said you were. But no. You wish your life was going that well. You wish you knew yourself half as well. This is pathetic.

She is really something, though. I wonder why I broke. Maybe because...I thought she'd hold me up? No. There's something about her. Some sort of comfort. Yes. That's it. I knew she wouldn't think of me as any worse. She wouldn't judge me. She'd still love me for me, and for and despite all I've done.

That's exactly it.

So he pooled his tears in his hands, and wished them away, as if he knew that was what she would do.

-

Why do all of you cry at me, she wondered in misery. Do I not have enough to cry for myself? Do I have to be your Atlas, every single one of you? She held in all their complaints and their sadness.

The waiter approached cautiously, and let her know the bill could be settled later. Head in hands, her tears flavoured her dinner, as she wept, for once, for her own miseries.

A Scratch On Our Hearts

I lay her gently on her clothes

She will leave me, yes, I know...

Like a thief

This is murder with kindness and kisses, my dear.

Rich (Or How To Set Us Apart)

"You will never be a part of this world. My advice to you would be to leave. Don't even try."

"That's not an option I would like to exercise."

"You're not taking this seriously."

"That is not true. I mean it as seriously as I can."

"Not seriously enough."

She picked at the butt of the spent cigarette, wondering whether his name started with an A, or an E, or a J. His blue eyes wandered around the room, stopping repeatedly at the smouldering stick balanced lopsidedly on the ashtray rim, refusing the urge to take another drag, or three.

"So, anyways. There I was..."

"Your stories are so dull. Why must you make me sit through them?"

"They don't need to be exciting. This situation we find ourselves in, it does away with the desire for spontaneous rapture."

"That's not what I meant. Your words do not portray the electricity rushing through your skin. Why is that urgency in your touch lost in your mouth, in your mind?"

She sketched her thoughts in slanted cursive, not looking at the shapes left when her ink dried. Her thoughts were lost in black and blue, but she'd know where to find them when she looked. She picked at the scab, as he picked at cold leftovers.

"Don't ever speak to me again. Don't say a word. When you come, I want you to touch me. I want you to see me, and dance with me, but I can do without the sound of your voice. These cold nights aren't for words. Yours, or mine."

He reached up to fix the sky a little, and stoked the fire dying in their bellies.

"Come. I don't want to sleep alone tonight."

He remained silent, while his hands did the talking.

A quote.

Wet socks mean achievement.

Two Thousand Stomach Aches

She kissed him on the lips.

In grey tones of early mornings, in those spaces where there was distance, He would look at her, and find her less attractive. She was still everything he wanted. When her sulk bled in her mouth, when her voice cracked in his breath, when his eyes danced in her hips, he found happiness. He still wanted more.

She would call when he would lay besides another, and ask if everything was okay. Why wouldn't everything be okay?, he thought. He gave her assurances, gave her love, gave her a sense of stillness. She took them in her embrace, and named her secrets after stars.

He watched while she wrote. She watched while he played. With ritual uncertainty, they tangled in corners where neither belonged. When she pulled away, he would escape into the shadows, leaving her with his scent, and the promise of something more yet.

I Want To Love You (But I Know You Don't Want Me To)

The scars on my back tell me stories, just like the bruises on your knees sing to you. In a monstrous moment of passion, you looked us in the eye, and wondered, aloud, how it could get any better than this.

And then we found out that it couldn't. But it could get a lot worse.

-

Our love is a texture of taboo,

sunk into our hot wounds,

blood coated on your nails,

and tears melting on my face.

Sleepwalkers

I feel I should believe that,

in a world where angels

can make men weep,

overwhelmed,

there is still hope

for every single one

of us.

We're All Alright (But There's Trouble In The Moshpit)

His smile is reflected sadness in her eyes. His eyes follow, and drop a notch with hers. As thumbs secretly caress each other amongst noisy passersby, he thinks of a song, and she starts to hum it to themselves alone. And so, we find significance in coincidence. She feels ill, and he feels reticent. She shapes him into comfort, so she can sink the world into silence, so she can hear nought but the falsetto piercing her heart in her head.

-

He stands in wait as she shuts the door, and peels back the cotton warmth to reveal freshly tingling skin. She sees him and smiles, as the cold shakes loose from her bones.

"I love coming home to you."

It spills forth, as she spills into his arms. He smells tobacco and cologne in her hair.

"New brand of cigarettes this time?"

His caustic tone did not escape into forgotten notions of possibility, and she sighed wearily.

"No. He's still smoking Davidoffs."

As am I, she thinks to herself. A cigarette feels great after a fuck.

"Do you come home to me because he refuses to hold you?"

"No. I come home to you because he doesn't know how to."

No one but you.

"Why do you come at all?"

"What sort of question is that?"

"If he's the one you're fucking, why not live in his fucking filth, instead of wallowing in mine?"

"Honey, you're not filthy at all. We both know you're ideal. Our hearts are sealed within one another, but you can't get me wet, and I don't make you hard."

"So your solution is to fuck someone else."

His voice starts to crack.

"Baby, I think you're over-reacting. You should try it too."

"I have. And I couldn't. It's not you. It doesn't feel right."

"I'm sorry. It feels just fine for me."

Tears flowing down his cheeks, he gets up from the chair he forgot himself in, and kisses her with all the passion of a yearning that has burned impotently in his pit. She gasps in surprise, digging her nails into his neck and back when she regains composure. They stay locked for a while, before he pulls away.

"Tell me that wasn't real."

"I feel it. I do. But it does nothing to..."

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE WHAT IT DOES OR DOES NOT DO TO YOU!"

His rage asphyxiates her from across the room. A silent threat pricks the back of her throat, as she searches for peace in the fear. He cries on, brimming with anguish and destruction, two far-too-familiar emotions in this house of theirs.

"...I've set your dinner out on the table for you. You should eat."

She sits down, not touching a single tear of the tens running free from her eyes. He pulls out the chair for her, sets a napkin in her lap once she is sat, and kisses her mocha shoulder once the wine is poured. His soft lips know how to brush my skin just right, she thinks. Not like those ruffians, who expect her flesh to respond with blood when they sink their teeth in.

She tastes a morsel, then takes a few more.

"I want out."

"...then have it. If that's what you really want."

He says nothing more, though she sees right through him. She sees him screaming in protest, raging like rapids in the rush of unintended emergency. She finishes her food, wipes her face clean, and drops the napkin on the greasy remainders on her plate. The coats come on once again, as she braces herself for the treachery of the northern winter.

She walks out the door. He stands transfixed, helpless, pleading silently. The door shuts. The footsteps fade. An hour passes. She does not come back.

He falls to the floor and weeps, until he forgets how this started in the first place.

-

She pins him down to the bed. The violin's crescendo makes her cry. He stares in devoted awe, as she chokes the life out of him one last time.

Tear

Like wasted pieces of paper

we are ripped into shreds

and strewn on the floor

and stepped on, forgotten.

How We Left.

Cookie dough is a pain the ass, he thought, swirling the spoon around in the bowl some more. He couldn't complain. This was what lazy afternoons were made for. Baking with the babies. Who gave two shits about Diabetes?

DAAAAAAAAAAADDYYYYYYYYYYY. SOMEONE AT THE DOOOOOOR FOR YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.

Sunday visitors was the sound his eyes made as they rolled far into his head. The bowl sat on the bar, giving company to his Scotch. He made his way to the door.

17 years. This face was a memory older than his daughters.

"Hi."

Hello.

"It's good to see you."

Yes. Yes, it is.

"Guess I should be going now."

Guess you should.

"...You haven't changed."

Only to you.

"That's enough for me."

That's fair enough.

She turned and walked. He turned and downed his Scotch, as their voices stormed in his ears, begging to know who she was, and singing of how pretty, and if she would come back for cookies.

How do I say who she is, when I still don't know her name...

Enjoy Kant

Is this what love will become?

You run to me, and cry in our arms.

But you run to him, only to complain

of how the salt makes your hair stick,

and you want to stop.

I'm sorry, love, if I don't know how to.

But I hope you know,

that I wish I knew.

I know it tires you, that my fingers are so relentless. Constantly pulling at your strings, making you scream. My cold hands know of no heat greater than your soft tones, or a deeper hue than the brown of your hair.

I wish I knew how deep your well was, so I could know when to stop drawing.

Only you.

Nothing else could make me sit in silence.

Your shoulder burns with every movement

when the dagger lies 4 inches in your back.

This is Not Your Fiction

He brings the tune to a close, and her scent wafts in. Eleven months have passed since he last tasted her skin. Where is this smell, this sensation hiding, and how is it so close to me, he wonders.

He awoke in silent chambers, windows open, whispers chasing the morning light. He thought he saw her skirt skid around the corner, but he couldn't be sure. The night before, she had raised a finger to his lips. He kissed her shoulderblades, and waited for the rain to stop. When it refused, she held him till she fell asleep, and his body burst into flames. She doused the rage with glacial eyes.

He wonders how far she's gotten. He stands at the door, pretending to chase her. When she does not appear, he gives up.

He will search another day.

-

I know of the broken fantasies you chase

But would you not seek again

the fantasies you break?

What Makes A Man?

I can feel the truth swelling

Tonight's a game of do or die

I can't hear a word you're saying

Though I know your story's mine

What makes a man think he can tell an honest lie?

I think I know

I think I might know...

A Change of Direction

"Will you bring me there?"

It was an odd question to ask at that point in time, I mused. What time was it? It did not matter. It certainly wasn't the right time. If there ever was a right time.

"We will have to see."

It was as much honesty as could be afforded. She wrangled her shape into curves and crevices, open and inviting. She called, and I came.

"I have always loved you."

I wished, deep down, that it was as true as she made it seem.

"And I you."

"Good. Stay."

I let her wrap arms, legs, hair, and mind around me, holding me still so I could weep, and she could breathe. I wept till she let me, and she purred in delight. When I stopped, she kissed my brow, and blew her stale breath in my face.

We slept quietly, as the fires raged on outside our windows.

A Glass of Red Wine

I tried in vain

to search for a place for my head.

I failed, and thought

I'll smoke my tears away instead.

A different taste.

"Stitch for me a melody, sire, in your favourite key."

"Why must your musical euphemisms always be so mundane?"

"Hmph. Fine. I want you to write me a song."

"Sure. Care to name a mood? My key is Bminor. it's suited to sadness."

"...It does not become you, this constant melancholy."

"It does not become you, this attachment, or concern."

"..."

"I'll write you your song, but I'll write it once you're gone."

"I shall be waiting."

-

Mornings became too sombre, breakfast a lonely affair. He hummed a reticent tune, a song tired of waiting. It waved through hollow corridors, and sat on a breeze, carried to her estranged ears. The ears he kissed every time his eyes came undone.

He sat in his silence, chewing on eggshells.

Get Fighted

So make sure you love

like you've never been hurt,

and when you dance, dance

like there's no one watching you...

Fractals

In deeper twilights

she takes the heart of one

and the flesh of another

and repels, infinitely, the soul of the last.

A Coma Feeling

"...Why, hello stranger."

"...Hello. I wished I would see you here again."

"That's very kind of you to say. I hoped you would too."

"I'm not doing anything. Nobody's waiting for me. I've got nothing pressing coming up. Could you accompany me?"

"...What do you know, you're definitely some sort of crazy, too."

"Can I take that as a yes?"

-

They came together. After lying silent, held, he got up to put his clothes back on, and to look out the window; she sat up to light a cigarette, and watch a silhouette press up against the grey sky and button up its shirt.

He sang a short tune to himself.

"It's painful to listen to you sing."

"It'll stop soon, worry not."

"You skew your notes."

"I try..."

"No, it's that....it's just so raw. You sing from your heart. You're singing it right. But your heart, it pours itself out into your voice. It's painful"

"...I don't know what to say to that."

"So are we just strangers?"

"If you would remember, I was ready to give my name. You told me no."

"So does that make it four now?"

"No."

"What do you mean?"

"With them, it's sex. With you, it's much more fragile. Delicate."

"Who is she?"

"Who?"

"That one. That won't have you."

"A ghost. Smoke. Bees buzzing angry at your window. She's your shadow, much as she is mine."

"...Will you come back?"

"I think I should leave now."

"You are infuriating."

"I might as well be. You don't know me after all."

She sits up to watch his back shrink into the morning light. She smokes another cigarette, and stretches into comfort.

-

He measures heavy paces, as her question still trails in his ear.

"Will you come back?"

This is important, but there are far more important questions, he thinks. Questions such as, he says to her, inaudible over the distance between them, will you come back......