tell me about it

“What do you mean, no?” she asked, but even as her voice broke and the first tears began to fall, his back had already turned and he was halfway out the door.

Lately she hasn’t been coming as often as she used to. The fruit is soft and rotted, the ash has blown away. He lingers, disconsolately, ever watching, ever hopeful. But each day he knows he fades a little more.
When there is nobody left to remember him, then he will be forgotten. [...]

They come in herds, in droves, in well-meaning crowds. He presses each person’s hand in seeming gratitude - thank you for coming, thank you, thank you for being here - but his smile never reaches his eyes. He doesn’t think his smiles will ever reach his eyes, again.
He can see people sharing lively [...]

When I love
I feel that I am the king of time
I possess the earth and everything on it
and ride into the sun upon my horse.
When I love
I become liquid light
invisible to the eye
and the poems in my notebooks
become fields of mimosa and poppy.
When I love
the water gushes from my fingers
grass grows on my tongue
when I [...]

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains
Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his [...]

This morning, Amelia gave me a lift to school - she was a little late, so I was at the bus stop waiting for her and promised, in the interim, to compose her a poem in gratitude for the lift. After about ten minutes at the bus stop I came up with this poem, [...]

“I’m lost,” she whispered. Her voice was ragged with the understanding of the absolute truth of her own words, and her eyes never left his face.
“I’m lost.”

i.
I sleep with a salamander on my pillow, the Queen said as she stared out the window at nothing in particular. It licks up the tears that fall as I weep at night. One day it will die from all the bitter sorrow it has drunk, but until then it will continue to [...]

A rash of weddings, he said, but I shook my head vigorously. Not a rash, I insisted, why do you make it sound like a disease? Like something that eats at the skin. It should be a joy of weddings, a revel of weddings. A thrill of weddings, maybe. He [...]

I dived into love with you.
I stood on the diving board, rough wood, splinters curling up at the edges. My toes were small and white as they gripped the edge of the plank like a dying man grasps at his last breath. I remember looking down and thinking, I don’t have to jump. [...]