Nepenthe
I wrote you while the lights were still dim and the air was dense with quiet. I wrote you dizzy, how first sun falls through trees and rests against early-morning wet in the air. Like the weight of finger prints left on anxious skin. I wrote you as the damp of your words stroking my thoughts with the whispers that make me sleep easy. I let you curl over and around. Dripping, slipping, unwound. And as the sun set, I wrote you into the dreams that leave me aching with the want to wake and breathe from the same place your mouth pulls the oxygen it uses to feed your lungs. I let the ink flourish and bleed into the shape of you. And I wonder if you dot my last ‘i’ cross my last ‘t’ lay yourself down, a period, rather than ellipses, if I could feel content. I wonder if I could stain my insides. Burn you across my rib-cage. Leave you as a masterpiece buried in my bones. Tattooed into my skeleton. I would paint your arms and legs and smile and eyes to match the exact weight of lightness that you fill me with, but my palette lacks the tones of down-blossom feathers and dust motes dancing in sunlight. So I settle for eating you whole. And it’s like swallowing thunder. Deep and satiating. All the thrill of lightning yet missing that violent spark. It’s you as the first drop of rain seeping through my cracked landscape in a drought. It’s me barefaced and stripped raw. I wrote you as closed fists. And you poured over me into open palms.
Friends with Benefits
Whiskey and Wine
always got along fine
until one night they tumbled together.
What they thought would be nice,
a cocktail on ice,
left them high, dry, and unfettered.
Where she used to be sweet,
he simple and neat,
now they swirled in a toxic ether,
of love and lust
that in the end must
leave them both feeling under the weather.
So keep it in mind
that not all pairings wind
up as happy as lace and leather.
No, these two should stay friends,
and not hook-up again,
so we all can wake up feeling better.
Love You Anyway
“Romeo, Romeo, where fart thou, Romeo?"
“Oh, sorry Julie, babe, it must have been those sprouts I had with my Thanksgiving dinner. I’m sorry, I fart in bed sometimes.”
“Oh Romeo.! I don’t care about that. I love you anyway. Cough, cough…”
“Anyway, Julie, baby. You snore like a train!”
“Oh, Romeo, Romeo, Roll-me-over if I snore.”
“Ok, but I don’t mind really. I love you anyway.”
“Aah”
Kiss, kiss, kiss.
Star-Crossed
"Annabeth!" calls Marc. A girl in a white nightgown pokes her head out of her bedroom window excitedly. "I have a song for you!" says the boy in the wrinkled tux. Annabeth leans out farther. Marc starts to strum his guitar. About two measures in, he begins to sing. "This holy girl, in the nightgown, she is so perfect, I can't let down. We are forever two bound in one, as consistent as the east and the sun. Oh, oh, the east and the - SUN!" yells Marc. Annabeth tumbles in midair, past the fire escape, past Ms. Tiffany's window, past the second floor flower shop and the first floor cafè.
"AAAAAAAAAAHH!!!!!!!" she screams. "Save me!" Marc runs to where Annabeth is falling. "I got you, Annabeth!" yells Marc.
Just when Annabeth is about to fall perfectly into Marc's arms, and he was going to carry her away into the night, and she would be so grateful, and then they would live happily ever after - just when she is about to hit him, a tall muscular man swoops in. Annabeth plopps into her arms and looks into the eyes of her savior. She sees a perfect man, tall and handsome. He had saved her life.
He sees a dinky little girl that he would pretend to like and then dump on the street like the sixty-five other women he had been with.
Marc has a very bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling. This man just randomly comes out of nowhere and saves his dream girl? No. Not happening.
"Better luck next time, kid," says Mr. Muscular, carrying her away into the night, and she was so grateful, and she hopes they would live happily ever after. Marc is furious, but he has no choice but to return to his lowly dorm on the other side of town. He straps his guitar to his back and starts to bike down to town.
A few days later, he hears Annabeth in her room as he is passing by. Please, don't ask him why he does this. It's quite personal.
Annabeth is crying. And Annabeth never cries. She is one of the strongest women Marc knows. So he pulls out his guitar (please don't ask about that either, he is a musician) and yells, "Annabeth!"
She stays in her bedroom.
But Marcus D'Antoine Reviere doesn't quit. "I have a song for you!" he yells. He starts to strum. After about two measures, he begins to sing. "This holy girl, in the nightgown, she is so perfect, I can't let down. We are forever two bound in one, as consistent as the east and the sun. Oh, oh, the east and the sun. The east and the sun." He stops singing and looks up. Annabeth isn't in her bedroom window anymore. He sighs.
Maybe Annabeth isn't my soul mate, he thinks. She didn't like his song. He starts to walk away, when he is ambushed from behind. He feels Annabeth's warm arms caressing him and he turns around to hug her back.
"You were always there for me, even when I wasn't there for you. Thanks. That really means a lot. That guy was a huge jerk. I don't even know his name!" Annabeth murmers, her head buried in Marc's shirt.
"That's okay. No matter what, I will always love you." Marc replies. He carries her away into the night. She is so grateful. And they live happily ever after.
