The cart barricade shunts us

suspects past the wary checkout lord.

No one sane buys salad at midnight,

so management routes us to chips, beer,

and night-checkout man, tall and fifty.

We of the early morn file through

his glare that roves our

pockets for bulges and

rolls a teacher-poet

into the hoi polloi so that

for a time I do belong here,

for a time I am not marked

by education and station in

this low wage GED town,

my politics temporarily

indistinguishable from the camo-clad

MAGA man who also heads for beer:

comrade of twilight hours,

brother of the empty fridge.

They shelve the Bud and Keystone

an aisle apart from oatmeal stouts

and wittes. I meditate on pairings

for spinach-artichoke dip.

Nothing shouts out privilege

so much as the desire to doff it,

like a handcrafted cap.

My compatriot carries Coors

toward the self-checkout machine

that declines his card; he curses,

night check-out man scowls.

I pay and pass unobserved.

The truth is, I lack

sufficient they to feel

a bona fide we.

The truth is, I moved

to a town that will never forget

I’m from elsewhere.

The truth is, my beer

tastes delicious, and I deserve

dislocation and scorn.

blood drops adorn the fringes of my paper. my hands tremble as i grip the pen and book, heart racing. icy air bellows down the nape of my neck and i shiver, your presence strong as ever. ghostly white fingers glide over my arm, discovering the scars on my wrist and lace with my grip water-swollen fingertips bringing a strange comfort, shrouding me from the darkness around me like an unwanted hug, smelling like an eerie basement filled with disregarded memories.

isn’t that all you are? a forgotten moment, an abandoned emotion, a long-since lost feeling that rests in the pit of your stomach, as heavy as a stone. your grip guides mine, scratching out words you and i have longed to say but never dared to murmur.

it’s unintelligible from both of us shaking but we know what it means.

just the two of us.

you and i - shared secrets between our once close souls and now lost strangers. your touch slips away, your ghostly comfort ripping from my shoulders as you disappear into the foggy shadows. only my writings remain on the page, lonely and small against a startling white backdrop, stained with crimson tears, crinkled from my desperate clasp.

empty, unreadable words that carry the load on my shoulders. you shudder against my spine like the quick and gentle flutter of a butterfly wing. oxygen stolen from my lungs, i gasp for air as my body obeys your faint touch, desperate to pull you close and hold you to my heart, never letting the cold abyss claim you again.

your bright laugh is faded as it echoes in my head, the sudden image of you enveloping me in your arms washing over me like a fresh spring day mist. flowers bud in the topsoil of my heart, watered by the tears from my eyes. they’re delicate - fragile - yet their roots dig deep, clutchingto the faint reminiscent emotion of love. of belonging. they swear to never let go, tendrils grasping at every crevice of the hardened emotion, the same as i’m holding on to the memory of you.

praises linger on the tip of my tongue,

cut short by the blood-curdling scream.

shivers race over my skin,

spidery legs digging into my flesh,

stabbing into the bones.

the hands of the clock remain still,

frozen in that hell-sent second.

prayers roll off my tongue,

dropping to the ground as stones,

ricocheting off the cold floor.

rain falls from the heavens

as if the angels are crying with me

but only i know that they’re crying out of pity,

not grief of what has happened.

gold coins sound as they fall into people’s purses

like rotten apples tumbling to the ground.

the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

it rings in my ears, deafening as i struggle to stand.

the heart quakes beneath me,

shaking with its own rage.

the sky shudders as it unleashes its anger,

raining down fire upon the heathen.

screams, like ice, stab through to my core

as i waver, my hands numb to the frozen reality around me.

i will make the world burn

and watch as it slowly melts,

lava dripping through my fingertips.

just to get to you

There’s ice in your eyes,

where there’s fire in mine,

But darling, ice can burn-

The sad thing about our story,

is that we end in mortal doom,

For every moment we’re together,

Turns our hearts into a tomb.

You melt for me, and I burn for you,

both of us withering away.

But at dawn we stand, forgotten pain,

to live another day.

I love you with my soul,

rather than my heart of fragile strings.

even though I run from our clandestine affairs,

I find peace in what they bring.

I stood in a gossamer gown,

your eyes tracing the fires of my eyes,

and as you knelt upon your knee,

I whispered, “Do you think that is wise?”

You said, “Darling you can destroy me,

for I was only ever yours to break,

My hands were meant for yours,

as we cross the frozen lake.”

Even in the utter chaos,

The only peace high up in foreign spires,

Can only be found with you, so-

I’m stepping into our raging fires.

#fantasy #poetry #poems #challenge #love #prose #fire #ice

I wouldn’t say there's been any one singular event of the last few months that would make sense to write about on its own. Things seem to have been snowballing into some sort of alternate reality. I think things really started to pick up in october. I had a full blown manic episode out of nowhere, followed by two weeks of suffocating depression. Bipolar runs in my family, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the unexpectedness of it all was terrifying. The first half of the month was a blur of art, impromptu parties, and rushing headfirst into what felt like insanity. After that, time seemed to stop completely, and I watched the minutes melt away from my room, the number of missing assignments pile up, and the reality of the situation set in like a rock. By the time November rolled around, I had acquired a couple tattoos I have no memory of giving to myself and was ten pounds lighter, with a drug addiction I thought nothing of until the withdrawals hit me like a truck. Little white bars took hold of my life and held on so tight I felt as if they would never leave me alone. I spent much of the month drained, living each day waiting for the weekends, which were spent with my best friend and whichever group we were going out with for the night. Country club parking lots and apartments of absent parents became our safe havens. Her house was of course the spot we would always start at and end up just before the sun rose. I would return home to my parents and take a few shifts at my job, and then sink back into the pit of school work, just hanging in there until friday. December rolled around, entailing getting bellybutton piercings in the back closet of a sketchy tobacco parlor, a gym membership we actually had the motivation to use, friday nights with our jordan friends, and saturdays with the cary ones. It’s felt like a movie. She just found out this morning she has stage three lung cancer. And just like that everything else seems to fade into the background. The invincibility we’ve always felt disappears, and all the things we’ve always talked about doing together when we got older seem now like a story neither of us believe, but keep telling each other, because while we used to cling to having time, and the idea that when we grow up everything will be okay, she might not have too long left. Living everyday as if it's the last is only fun when you know it won’t be, and it terrifies me that one day I will wake up and she might not, and I will have to face the entire world alone.

we had fun head-banging to metal in the parking lot. i laughed at your crazy hair.

the yellow moon thinks we’re fun to watch.

dont you dare ruin the moment with sentiment. your honeyed words.

how could you, when you know my heart is off limits?

stop trying to make this special with soft words, with the blue stars in your eyes.

this friendship or whatever this is. what are we, you and me?

i’m sick of feelings. can’t you just talk about favorite colors and stupid songs?

no, that’s not our star. nothing is ours. we are not a we. please.

the truth? he did it, and then we were done.

if you do it too, i won’t be able to stop myself from running. again.

yea, we love the same things, down to the note in a song. it’s crazy.

we cry for jack johnson and we’d die to play like jimmy page.

yes, we have the same mind, made of the same things. the colors especially.

heck, we have the same favorite pop-tart. who else likes fruity pebbled waffles?

just leave it there, don’t get into the ‘soulmate’ thing. i don’t want to know if we are.

hope flies, truth shatters. i saw the syrupy way you smiled, my stomach sank. don’t lie.

man, we were really flying down that highway, with the streetlights making it a party.

i held your guitar so it wouldn’t fly out. you looked at me like i was cradling a baby.

probably shouldn’t have touched it in the first place. i saw that terrible lovesick look.

does it make me special too, if i am friends with your most special possession?

stop smiling so sweet and soft like the gritty cotton candy taste left behind. we’ll lose this.

and you knew i was broken, why would you hit me where it hurts like that?

hey, don’t dress like me. 80′s is my era, no stealing, no matching. don’t sit so terribly close.

why would you mess with my head? you know i run without looking back.

and don’t write me a song. that’s where it all ended. the notes whispering about love.

don’t write me a song, you know how that killed me.

my mom pulled up his song the other day.she didn’t know it was the one he made for me.

i cried too hard. don’t do it, when you know its wrong. when you know songs are my love language.

don’t write me a song.don’t strum the strings so soft like that.don’t turn me into a melody

with your glass fingertips, your warm ‘hold you’ eyes. don’t name it after me, my hair, my colors.

i’ll lose you.

and i won’t feel a thing.

light glittering idly past

thick glass in the shape of my hands; glass,

crawling up past my skin, splintering with pain where

it and i unevenly end and begin

these fingers are sometimes cavities that hardly move--hand,

much the same--empty of themselves and

empty of me, in all of my

shimmering blinding stillness

sometimes i think

sometimes i wonder

if my empty fingers cry out a

possibility of the future of the rest of me

fingers sometimes almost as real as skin,

see my bones bending gently within

web of tendons and nerves, bodies of muscle;

all drowned in my blood

sometimes these fingers move,

and when they do, i move to

cup your cheek in my hand,

try not to wince when you do, as my hand is far too cold for you

other times, when these fingers refuse to take orders from my mind of minds,

you hold my hand in your gloved one (again, i am far too cold)

and you read and sing me to sleep when i begin to cry

because i don’t recall feeling you and i miss what i don’t quite understand

i wish, sometimes, that i was

better

for you--

warm and alive and well and

i miss you, i miss you,

even when you are so close, even when you are so near,

because it’s killing me to have the means

to touch your hand or your face, yet not be able to feel

when the rain

pulls a silver curtain

over the sky

and the ground,

painting with steel,

or when you stare at

the polluted sky

and it makes

a vibrant sunset,

or possibly that

special place

deep in the woods

where society

seems far away.

even when your

mood is black

as the shining onyx,

it's easy to remember

that every color

no matter the

mood attached,

is beautiful,

and every swirling

rainbow of feelings

is necessary

to paint

a picture.

Take a deep breath of the crisp air and let your vast memories come rushing back. The things you did as a child, the things you will do as an adult. Think back to running into your parents arms or holding your beloved childhood pet. The sound of the rain on the roof while you fall asleep. The sound of a train taking people to places they never thought they would go. Imagine yourself twenty years from now. Ten years. One year. A month. A week. A minute. How much could change in your life in those time frames. Maybe in that next minute you will let go of that breath and realize that you didn’t only let out a breath that you had been holding for the past minute, but one that you had been holding for years longer.