Practical Distance

Her ceiling is a garden of dead roses. A faint draft stealths under the door. Sets them swaying. Laying on her floor, she looks up at these floral corpses, and inverts her world. She is an underworld godess reigning over the casualties of love gone bad. And hovering in her carpeted sky, she can see that the petals gone hard. Like her heart. Hardened, yet somehow more fragile. And like those petals, hanging from their plaster ground, she is ready to fall. Though she tries to ground herself with rage. And thumb tacs. And twine. "A bit of practical distance," she lies, "may do me some good."

Temporal Deceit

I am shifting through time again. Misplacing moments. Remaking them in my mind. I've been telling myself beautiful lies about yesterday. Forming stories for tomorrow. Creating new memories and manufacturing a better right now. I was close to convincing myself that I could hold back the granuals of my hour glass. But my feet have shifted and the weight is draging me down. So let me mislay the sand, in a closet or an empty drawer. And I'll step into neverwhere for a little while.

Dark Inclinings

She lingered after hours so that she could stalk through midnight alleyways on her way home. She loved the smells seeping from those dusty corners. She loved the small creatures which shared her nocturnal inclinations. She ran her fingers across a greasy doorknob, a damp stone wall, a rusty trashcan. Collecting bits of mildew and funk. Delicate and beautiful as she was, these granules of the underside made a warrior of her. An unconquerable force. A cascade of soulful streetlight tried to catch her in its grip. But she danced out of its reach, and strode farther into the night.

Battle

Our eyes click into alignment. His shadowed and cruel. Mine bright and ready. His intentions are as clear as the spring air. The misguided spring air, that swirls around our stock-still frames. I can taste the blade in my hand. The tang of steel licked by my fingertips. Anticipatory fingertips. He savors the scent of my fear, sharp and raw. Paints a smile on the corner of his mouth and lunges. Aims for my scars. But I am bright and ready. He wont find me such easy prey today.

Sensual Epiphany

Sitting here, so close I can feel the hair on your arms, I want to crawl inside the sweater you are wearing and share your space. I want to take off my shoes and slip in between your socks and your toes. I want to feel your eyelashes on my neck, your breath on my spine. My cold fingers cocooned in your warm fingers. And this desire, this sensual epiphany, overwhelms my good senses. I find myself leaning closer, brushing against those hairs on your arm. I catch my breath, shake indecency from my thoughts, and turn the other way.

Solar Infidelity

The villainous sunset left me cold, clad as I was in melancholy. She slipped beyond the horizon. To wed the West. To explore the other side. To bring her heat, her fire, to someone new. I was always aware of her wanderings. Her compulsion to stray. And yet I had hoped to be the one to break this cycle. Even now I can not abandon this hope, as she has abandoned me. I turn around. Face the East. And pray that she'll return.

Time

I have never made friends with time. Time is false, a pretender. Made malleable by the mind. And yet, too strict and unyeilding for my free spirit. It is a law I'd like to break. I have left a trail of busted clocks and broken watches in my perpetually tardy wake.

Or am I the true liar. I am a lover of the moon. I follow her waxings and wanings. The ebbs and flows of her tide govern my blood. I worship the turning of the seasons. That reassuring cycle that promises that death follows life, but life follows death again. I suppose I find nature's time piece friendlier than those mockeries made by man.