Giving Up The Ghost
I would say I wish you were here, but that would just sound cliche. Instead I'll tell you about the moon, how the cloud-cover has bathed my yard an ethereal glow. How the headlights of passing cars dance beyond the sway of tree-branches, and shadows scurry. How untouchable, invisible things can still be seen. Like wind and light and a spotlight of moon that falls right into the window where I sit.
I am here only in body. My heart is traveling beyond miles of backroad between a sliver of highway, past stop-lights made hazy of night mist and gas stations where souls, misplaced, loiter against the backdrop of cigarette smoke and longing. I am looking for you. Wondering....do you remember silly car rides and back seat kisses? Are your lips still haunted by the memory of my kiss? Do you wish you were here, but you can't risk saying it, for the sake of sounding lame?
Ghost behind a cell
phone, the hush-beat of a broken promise. You are a voice and a string of sweet
nothings. You are there. I am here. And there's nothing between us now but
distance.
Sad December
We shouldn't have
met in winter,
the bleakest nights
of December,
dreary no matter
how many candles
I left burning.
Winter, the season
of dead things,
frosted windows
and sight made
blurry by the wind.
A time of early twilight
and sad flowers
frozen stiff.
The season of
fancy dinners, inedible
and the gifts of love
that falter in the giving.
met in winter,
the bleakest nights
of December,
dreary no matter
how many candles
I left burning.
Winter, the season
of dead things,
frosted windows
and sight made
blurry by the wind.
A time of early twilight
and sad flowers
frozen stiff.
The season of
fancy dinners, inedible
and the gifts of love
that falter in the giving.
Indifference
Days before you
disappeared you asked me to write for you but the notebook you gifted me is
still empty (it probably always will be).
Cold Burn
Alone in a bedroom
candlelight and Lo-Fi
as my only confidantes,
I awaited word from you
but message never arrived.
Not in the form of a
quick-fingered text, nor
the Southern velvet
of your over-enunciations.
Winter months came and went,
whole lifetimes were enacted
outside my window.
Every morning the sun came
and every evening it lit
another little flame-burned
death beyond the horizon
yet never warming the trees
barren of leaves, nor me.
Still you did not call.
I watched the moon
circle the earth, a little
question mark trailing night sky,
answered the tone-deaf ring
of every telemarketer call.
I drank red wine
on sleepless nights
from fancy glasses the
cupboard usually kept secret,
waited until winter
grew into a reluctant Spring
and still no word from you.
Weary of winter ghosts
I finally stopped watching
the neon light of my phone,
quit counting minutes,
ceased my incessant
bargaining with the sun
and it's silly March promises
to rescue my heart
and warm my skin.
Just another burn.
Last Words
They say words have power,
but I think silence
bears the sharpest tongue.
There is nothing more
definitive than the lack
of something being said,
no greater finality
than an unanswered question
left to linger, perhaps forever.
Hunt Me
I am hunted most
by things
defied to me.
The shape
of her cheek
before she
kissed me.
The taste
of her lips,
thick and
sweet as honey.
The sugar-pull
of her gift
given in
the form
of promise,
how our plans
would linger
across the tip
of my tongue
even long after
she was gone.
I am hunted most
by profiles
of barrista's
that look
just like her,
the throb
in my heart
in the moments
before they
turn to me,
and again
she's gone.
I am hunted
by the thrill
of her fingers
fumbling between
a shirt I wear
that someone
else unbuttons.
And in dreams
where I walk
alone, I know
somewhere in
the background
of my mind,
nestled within
the bookcase
of my memory,
she's still there.
I find her
complete in
crooked smile
and tight jeans,
she's the hope
in a thing
I will back to me,
giddy patron of
a sideshow
fortune read
from inside
my palm, wide open
and waiting
for her return.
A Clandestine Attraction
My eyes were
incandescent blue
against headlights,
against the
heat of me and you.
But unbeknowest to me
the sweet nothings
you always wrote
were really elegies.
The words you gave,
and the kisses we traded,
were mercurial secrets
in shades of red.
I was just your
silly, whimsical
little antithetical
girl of illicit affairs.
And you were only a
slick Machiavellian
heart-breaker dressed
in a plaid shirt,
with don't-care hair.
Just another set
of sad lips
to brush against
the collar of
my cardigan sweater.
Everything Was Pink
Pink was the color
of my cheeks,
made cold by
a snow that blew
haphazardly for
five whole minutes
and was gone.
Pale was the pink
of your lips
and your eyelids
as they closed
and you pulled
my face into your own.
Pink like my panties
beneath your palm,
pink and lined
with white lace,
how you watched
me in my pink
pants, walking
toward you and away.
Nude pink, the color
of tongue to thigh,
nipple against breath,
these are the dreams
you teased me with.
And cherub pink, the
heaven of your
fingers, also pink
of cold, or of the
dishwashing at work,
pink and rough
to the touch
and I wanted that,
I wanted to be touched.