day fifty-three.

i've been a little lost. 

the loneliness is palpable in this city. i've brushed past him on subway 5, holding a briefcase but no expression. i've heard them on the street: whistling as the girls pass by. i've seen it in searching eyes, in forced smiles, in the cellphone that never gets put away. 

it's swallowing me. and it is dark and it is terrifying. and i can't quite stand to look it in the face because it is more than i am ready to feel. these are the things they should have prepared us for.

i am trying to find my way. 

S. 

{Photo: Margaret Durow Photography}

art-less.

There was no poetry in our bodies on those nights and early mornings. Only lapses in human judgement and motions that didn't mean all they were supposed to. (I was always loneliest sleeping next to you). 

There was no poetry in anything you said. Just lines recycled from Hollywood scripts. (4/10 on delivery). 

We tried to make poetry out of what was left behind of our souls (after the ones that came before were done with us), but not enough remained.

I have a poem for you now. About freckled skin and hands that quiver in the dark, about you and us and a place I'd never been before. But it is nothing to remember us by. 

(It is a poem and we were not).

S. 

{Photo: Lisa Overdose Flickr}

pabst.

The night we drank too much cheap beer and keyed our initials onto a cheap bar room table, 
well, 
it turns out it was magic. 

It's just taken me all this time to understand.
Too late, of course. 

I missed my cue and then delivered the wrong lines. 
And you took me for what I said, not meant. 
(Naturally). 

[I'm sorry, as always].

S. 

{Photo: Dennis Adelmann Flickr}

scar

you are the wound that never healed

the itch i scratched 
until I bled dark onto eggshell carpets

the scab that formed 
that i tore at 

until you became part of my skin tissue
a distorted stain on creamy white

i cannot feel you any longer
but your damage is carved deep
and it shows on the surface

[i wanted you gone so bad
i let you stay forever]

S.

{Photo: Viola Cangi Flickr}

Corrupted.

there are nights we cannot touch again; held sacred by the innocence that once surrounded them. 
a naivety that we've since broken - in violent and gentle ways.

adam and eve traded paradise for a taste of fruit,
so we traded trust with the knowledge of what a grown heart looks like when it's wrung dry.
we traded wonder with books on the human condition. 
and I traded you for a sense of freedom and a list of things I never even wanted to do. 

[you traded me before I had a chance to change my mind].

so here's to us, 
and to everything we lost when all the deals went through.

S. 

{Photo: Alyssa Jiosa Flickr}

dead summer .

lips red as sin, 
and the smell of something deep and lustful
dabbed to the wrists, the neck, 
the small of the back.

the room is full of people
or it is empty,
[i don't know the difference]. 

it seems we are all here for one hundred years
just trying to memorize dates, and times, and schedules,
and the recipe to a good chicken casserole. 
trying to memorize how our bodies work 
before they change again. 

and you are sitting across from me
in a room that's full or empty
[me, lips red as murder
you, a dirt smudged tan].

i've memorized the shades of brown and green 
and grey that make up your iris,
and i could recite your name in my sleep like a song
[i do].

but sitting here, my red sea lips 
refuse to part
the way i want them to. 

S.

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Tainted //

And all my woe is that now people are accustomed to say "Yes, jealousy is love,"  

and would excuse a bushel of venom because one grain of love is dropped into it. 

Troilus & Criseyde
edited by Gerard NeCastro 

{Photo: Lydia Greenaway Flickr}

Poisoned ink.

as much as i can claim that it happened years ago (or yesterday), it hasn't. 
i guess, when i've truly purged you from my system, i'll know. 

it will be when i go to write and you are not the one that leaks out. 

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

[the hard way]

what do you say to the one who still has your heart 
after too many unclaimed years?

we would have fizzled like water on embers. 
we would have burned, long and deep. 
we would have hit the wall in a trillion sorry pieces. 

but i would have loved the chance to try.

S.

{Photo: Pilar Zeta's Blog} 

Flowerchild //

"You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you."

Isadora Duncan

{Photo: Me}