snowone

Tables littered with mugs and cups and saucers, kettles on the stove whistling a symphony of steam. Nothing more than a powdered sugar dusting on yellow grass, I think we might be holding off the world’s cold all by our selves. Winking lights in the window and you with your stories of tragic loves and how the winter came about. I’ve never had a blanket like you to curl up under and I can only wish that you won’t unravel.

not to be found

Eating like a bird again, maybe it’s in defense of you. You look at me with those hungry eyes, your owl eyes, feathers brush across your face, across my lips. When you look at me, glowing eyes in the dark, I can’t look back. The trees are going up in flames and the nights close in. I curl up to wait out the winter but you- always going, never settling- what do you smell on the crisp autumn wind? What secrets do the falling leaves speak to you? What unknown places do they call you to? I can’t look at you because you’ll take the knowing part of me and leave with it.

 fires in the heart make for cold skin

drops

There are clouds in the parking lot. The trees are draped in white. The ground is white, the sky is white, I am white. I am mist (missed?). The valley has disappeared and I can see to the edge of the world. It is just over that ridge where all the color stops, drops. The mists muffle all sound here at the end of the world. Thick grass hangs heavy with cloudy gems; droplets of sky, as if the edges of the earth were bleeding together, and the heavens reached out and tangled with the hard ground. Bells in the distance.

spaces

I sleep with the moths now. Wings brushing about my cheeks, I confuse them with my eyelashes. Each night they come down from the pines at the edge of the yard and through the window I leave open now. I've given up trying to keep them out; they'll always find a way in, the rafters have so many cracks...
They used to frighten me and I'd turn on the lamp. The brightness would send them into a panic and they'd flow over me in a frantic race to the light, but they never did seethe like dark things do. In the dark they are only soft and sweet, small bodies that gather about me and when I rest they slow, fluttering with the push of my breath. They take your place now; millions of tiny arms to fill the space left behind. They are very accommodating, my new friends the moths. I'm sure they'll rearrange themselves when you come back.

...

because

"I like you too much for my own good"

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I know."

Down the shady, sunlit corridors; the dusty aisles; hours spent stitching the tiny tears in me back together. Such fine needlework, you can barely see the craftsman's hand. I'm sorry I can't give you a why. I have one, but it's not for you.

the effectiveness of rain

Missing you is getting easier. I only thought about you 57 times today (I know because I kept a tally on a scrap of paper in my pocket) as opposed to over a hundred times yesterday. If I keep going at this rate, decreasing by almost half each day, I know I'll never get to zero, but by the time you get back I'll hardly miss you at all!

Maybe if it were sunnier I wouldn't be having such a hard time. But since it's cold and wet all I want is to curl up in your arms and hear your heart beating so slow and deep.  It's amazing how powerful that one muscle can be... to gather up enough force with one perfectly timed contraction so that it can push all the blood in your body through each tiny capillary, and then bring it back. It's amazing how acutely such a strong thing can be hurt, by as cosmically microscopic an incident as, say, you leaving.

final exams

Making reference to the historical context, explain the following phrase from the Action Program of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia: “Voluntary social organizations of the working people cannot replace dreaming, but the contrary is also true.”

The ancient Greeks believed that thoughts were facilitated by little men living inside the mind. Expand upon this statement: What was the lifespan of the little men? What happened to thoughts if the "men" died prematurely?


Examine the effect that the Moon has upon the tides. To what extent is it believed that the tides are thus affected out of love for the Moon?  Be sure to support any claims with both circumstantial and speculative evidence.

Exams creeping up, we stay awake until even the warming wind blows itself out and the world is silent and dark in the hour just before dawn, cramming our brains with information: What volume of water runs over a single river stone in the course of a day? How much does a star weigh just before it explodes? Why do parts of the body sometimes sicken and die? Knowledge learned for the sake of learning knowledge; formulas, proofs, quantifying, qualifying... and you are still the unexplained

hair like feathers

 

We close our eyes, stinging from tiredness, bright with exhaustion and joy. Lodged in our throats, caught in chests, trapped behind teeth; the first gray rays of light wash over us, not as soft as your fingers on the skin of my shoulder. It is a quiet love, a love of bursts of laughter and no words. A love of lips of noses, love of eyelashes, your love, mine. The shadows of the year grow longer- we are stretching thin towards the close and we come back.

orange sky

Spring is trying on different coats, hand out the window, one foot in the door, deciding. The sky heats up and the rains come down and it seems that everything is in its right place. However off they were yesterday, however silly the grievance, it comes together for a while and you realize that time is only the ebb and flow of right and wrong. Salvation is the warm body next to you as the wind whips the trees into a frenzy that is fascinating because you are safe, held and anchored, tied to the warmth.

My skin still smells of you despite the scrubbing. You slip between my ribs and kiss me- goosebumps from the inside.

july flame

I feel as though I will never get warm.  I need the searing heat, the pressing humidity, the excuse to lie down in the grass and sleep because it is too hot to move but to sip cool things out of glasses.  I need the length of days and the closeness of the sky; the colors deepening in their ripe fullness; the sensuality of pressing air moved only by a hot breeze.  Here the air is too thin to hold me- I cut right through.  I need the heat because it holds you.

your brother said your mother was a firefly you buried in the earth

I woke up to gray skies melting towards a glowing dusk, the day was already old. The warm wind wakes the frozen ground and calls me down; the sea is back in my hair and the air tastes of salt and storms to come. Warm skin smells like lily of the valley and I am clean clean clean once more
 

Spring is beginning to come round again, at least here by the sea, now that I'm out of the mountains for a while. I'm back home for a quick vacation, of the mind and of the heart- it's surprising how much coming home can mean; how much it brings back what once was.

fleet

The air felt like spring today, even though it’s still cold.  Watching tendrils of steam curl off my shoulders still hot from the bath, cut by the breeze.  The skunk was so sweet for something so smelly.  It’s not worth being lonely any longer.

you could love me

Miss says I’m wasting away. I tried to explain that my stomach is full; I can’t eat.  It would do no good to explain that my heart dropped down and it’s sitting there, there’s no more room for food.

It’s been since your last visit, on that leave they gave you.  I didn’t know how to greet you after your last letter, but I couldn’t help but hope.  I waited in the rain for you that day, I know you weren’t pleased when you saw me soaked to the skin.  Your smile didn’t reach your eyes.

Please just cut me loose. Since I can’t stand the waiting I tried to sit it, but that didn’t work either. It rained like that again yesterday, and I took your last letter outside with me. Now we’re both soggy.

angels

Been raining all day and I'm in love

.

Always more in love

With drinks, life presents more doors

Open than those shut

swiming lessons

Returning to school in a tumble of snow and bags can be disorienting. The snow is up to my knees and sometimes the ice trips you up but you can't fall because you'd be late to class and there is no time to lose.

Luckily, I have your pretty face to distract me. Have you ever seen such beautiful eyes? I think maybe the sea got a little jealous and jumped in there herself. Not that I can blame her. If I could swim in your eyes forever, I would too.

a new year

I had a dream that the bread was burning in the fireplace. And you had used all that was left in the house to make French toast for me.

I think it was all on account of you reading that letter that was not meant for anyone to see. I know you read the whole thing, please don’t bother telling me you stopped half way. And I know you are only trying to help but please, this can’t be helped.

I don’t think I’ll look at you for the next month an a half.