There were flower petals, falling,

drifting, behind your eyes.

I saw them there, in the times I

glanced up. In those moments

that I allowed myself to be

mesmerized by you.

The slant of the sunlight was like lightning. Playing across your forearms, lines like rope, binding you in place. You sat so still for a moment I thought I wasn't breathing, that I had been absorbed into a photograph, and none of it was real.

But you were real. You were so real.

You raised a hand to your eyes, ruffled your bangs. Looked at me from underneath that slice of hair. We sat like that for a moment, eyes breathing each other in. I needed to blink, but somehow, I couldn't.

"You can go now," is what I said. A whimper into the sunlight, a confession into the morning air, still crisp, still cold, still charged.

The shift of your jaw, the clench of your teeth. Your eyes fall away from mine, but those slits of sunlight still dance on your wrists. Only the sun was allowed to touch you.

"It wasn't a mistake," is what you say. Your distance says otherwise, as does the twitch of your cheek. Lie, lie, lie.

Mistake.

I close my eyes when you stand because I don't want to watch you pick up your things. It's like the reverse of when you came. Putting your jacket back on--slung over the couch. Picking your bag back up--abandoned by the door. Taking the lily you gave me back into your hand--placed on the counter, where I could see it.

But my eyes aren't shut and the lily remains on the counter. Those lilies--they're falling behind your eyes as you look at me. They're dripping onto your cheeks now.

The sunlight entwines itself around your ankles, trapping you in place. I pray that time stops, the sun stops, like a frozen photograph. Because maybe then you won't ever leave after all.

we are riding down the highway and

you are next to me, you are

driving

the windows rolled down, your hair

flying in the wind

flying into your face and

the wind and the music create a pounding beat and

my heart beats along.

i am scream-singing to the music and you are

laughing

as you squint into the sun

the sun dancing on your face.

you glance at me

not too long not too long, eyes on the road

but you glance at me and your gaze is

warmth

pure sunshine.

it tastes like honey,

it feels like safety.

i couldn’t be happier and yet --

and yet.

i am already missing this moment

i am living it and already knowing that it will be gone in two seconds

two more

two more

soon it will end it can’t last forever and

i am already aching for it back.

i would stay here for an eternity of forevers

would you?

and even if you would

even if we both would

we wouldn’t. we

couldn’t.

i am aching for this moment because the

past-present-future are

ever-intertwined i can’t

separate them i can’t

be here and now when

then and there exists.

i can’t separate happy from sad because sad is

always at the core of happy.

i can’t separate them because sad lives at the end of the firecracker when

happy fizzles away

and firecrackers don’t last forever.

soak this in, soak it in, soon it will be

gone.

a towering stack of waffles,

with butter on top,

syrup dripping, permeating.

ringed by rashers of heavenly bacon,

like crispy petals of a flower.

toasted bagle, or seven,

covered lovingly, with butter.

covered, not spread!

on top of that a choice:

runny camambert cheese,

or leftover baked salmon.

better take both.

potato wedges, first boiled,

then fried in butter.

saussage links,

there’s no escape.

strawberries in cream,

with canned pineapples,

tomato sauce with tabasco,

coffee with milk, no sugar.

a steaming brownie for closure.

no regret,

no regtet,

no regret,

no regret,

no regret,

no regret,

clinking saucers carried off,

birds chirping,

distant sound of the ambulance,

they’ll never make it.

Tell me I meant something more

than just a girl you talked to once

tell me last time you said hello

you didn’t mean to say goodbye

I didn’t know last time

was the last time

can we start over

say hello like our lips

have never touched

like our hearts never called

each other home

can I take you there

I’ll write you love letters

you will never even read

love letters that will gladly age

in your closet drawer

the bottom one to the right

in that same box where

you’ve always kept

your heart.

Heart in a box -{renata ferretti}

I etched the image of you, close against my eyelids

(the sky fell obsidian and i closed them tight)

i brought the imprints of your hands close to my own,

imagined your ‘i love yous’ ended with my name.

painted your smile so warm, the night forgot to breathe

i traced your arms over & over, until they were over me.

built a house out of the words we never got to say

the bricks were too many, the words brimming over

and the moon is different where i live. it is

pieced together. one that i carved from the scrapings of stars

i hollowed out the moon, filled it with all those

butterflies (from every time i thought of you).

Often wondered if they would stop coming someday

but their wings still whisper the shape of your name,

glow blue and silver-soft while i filled the plastic moon.

hollowed myself out, shook the last fools-gold wishing coins over

the emptiness felt cold but my eyes were full,

(homesick or heartsick, i forget which applies)

and with the slowest movement, put dreams of you in last,

knowing the moon could hold them, safely softly-

-if i could never hold you, but in these charcoal shades.

i sketched your eyes, drawing them to watch mine

shaded in the layers of your windsoft unreachable fingertips

ever so light, i brushed in your heartbeat, fast and sure

even as you lay with your eyes so empty, so cold

and a voice behind me whispering, ‘baby, he’s gone’ (g sharp a flat).

even then, i shade your soft smile deeper, sweep

velvet strokes of white for the breath that you lost

my anam cara, where did i go wrong? waiting for this,

for your heart for so long, and now all that is left

is a wish-filled moon. these sketches of you i hold

so close, the shapes that follow my closed eyes

i built a dream that looked like you. a shadow. all the while

you gave & gave yourself away in pieces, til there was nothing left.

and i memorized your intricate mind, filled bleak nights with our story.

after all this time, you’re so far gone. a wish-moon for nought.

the music stops, the paintbrush pauses. stars flicker grey-glazed, cimmerian?

all at once i am ashamed of my dreaming. and of a fickle moon.

i envy the embullient flowers for feeding on (an earth that buries) your body.

i am envious for death that holds you still. and to stand here-

-to stand above the earthy bed in which you lay. crushing the soil

that stole away my person, my only person. all at once it goes so silent, dolent.

because our story cannot be written. (ersterbend) .the earth sighs the moon crumbles and

i realize what i’ve done. the downfall i caused with a defiant dream.

how empty of me to be so full of you.

star crossed lovers,

always end up in different constellations,

it seems no matter the time,

no matter the love,

no matter the emotions,

it ends just as quick as it began,

universe do you have no remorse?

splitting up people who mean the most to the other,

and leaving an ever lasting ache,

it didn't have to end this way,

we should've been infinite,

now he lives on in my heart, in my mind,

but he's not in my present,

he's gone

-life just isn't the same when your other half is gone

to the me i used to be,

that weight in your chest still hasn't left,

here in the future.

only now we know it's an outside weight

rather than something inside and inane.

to the me i used to be,

your naivety was such a blessing.

you could hold your own mental fortitude

but you are not as invincible as you thought.

your heart will break soon. i'm sorry.

to the me i used to be,

your friends are family like no other

but behind the screen, more lives await

to be touched by your words.

you have value. you have reason.

to the me i used to be,

we once thought that life needed purpose

that in order to be great, you had to think great

but now i know that isn't the case.

life is purposeless, and it's beautiful that way.

to the me i used to be,

chase your dreams. not your father's.

chasing other dreams leads only to disaster.

we broke on a quiet autumn afternoon.

we broke because i thought of everything

i wanted to say to you.

to the me i used to be,

you are going to be okay.

you are a body of decay and resistance.

even as the old pieces of you fade away

you're still you, at the end of the day.

you're still you.

thank god. you're still you.

The text, page 143, provided a bio-chemical explanation that reduced

the way my stomach felt like knots whenever I saw him

to a streamline of synapses crackling across neural pathways in my brain.

I cracked one of my antidepressants in half; powder spilled all over my desk

and I applied enough pressure to the MAOIs to create a diamond.

I saw a radiologist and I demanded he provide me an MRI; he promised me that nothing was wrong.

No! I proclaimed. You have no real schooling then! Call in the neurologist!

When I was seven, I threw up on a rollercoaster because of an excess release of adrenaline and norepinephrine that made me feel lightheaded and I ate a cone full of funnel cake just before.

Presently, it feels like my ribs are going to crack and my heart is pounding against my sternum

and my liver is gonna slip right under the thick muscle in my abdomen.

And just when it felt like I was going into cardiac arrest -- I looked at him.

I suddenly felt stupid for knowing the first two-hundred digits of pi.

I felt like a fool for keeping my heart plugged into an electrical socket,

because I tripped over the wire when I saw him and my heart rate is still over 100 beats per minute.

The Pingtang telescope has a rose lense.

Stars don’t seem like suns blowing up and igniting budding solar systems into oblivion.

They look like constellations.

And nothing is simply zeroes and ones.

01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111

01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001

01101111 01110101 00101110

the woman in the psych ward

commented on her face

I have a face tic, too

and we all watched

with agony at the damaged

complexion of

the other girl

but botox cured me

and the other girl nodded

her face moving in

the wrong directions

but otherwise in control

of her sanity

probably just a burnout

who needed to see others

equally out of control

of their bodies

neurons that fired incorrectly

with a connection to others

who are otherwise crazy

″Poor Man” the old lady thought walking down the street, her gaze fixed upon the elderly man hunched over on the sidewalk. Yet as she passed him, she said not a word, and continued on her way. He was dirty, clothes in tatters, with nothing but a thin blanket to shield him from the harsh city weather. He was alone, with nobody but himself. In an earlier life he had friends that would save him in an instant from his condition, but they were all gone to the next world, and so here he sat. Every day he sat there, hoping a stranger would see his plight, and offer some assistance. But day after day nobody stopped, most of them thinking ”The next man will surely help him” and continuing on their priveldged way. For the old man, every person he saw made his eyes glimmer with hope, only to be crushed as they passed him by, without hesitation. But the old man held onto hope-even if it was hanging by a thread, he faithfully hung onto it. But winter soon approached, and as the days grew colder, the fibers of the thread began to loosen and break. Once, a long time ago, the old man had been a great soldier, fighting valiently for his country, the same country, the same people who now passed him on the street without a second thought. As the day drew to a close, and more people passed him, he figured he had better find shelter. So he walked, not too far, and there he found a tree, and layed down under its great oak branches. His eyes began to droop, and soon he was fast asleep.

″Poor man” thought the police officer the next morning, as he watched the old man being lifted into the large white vehicle; the old man had finally gone to join his friends in the next world, and he quickly became another number, another statistic. He wouldnt be mentioned in the newspapers the next morning, he would simply be forgotten.