A furtive glance, upon thee cast

unearths fond memories of the past.

They're evanescence, fading fast.

Against doubt, I implore, outlast!

If failure strikes true, lost in vast

shall be dear memories from our past.

Consumed by loss, driven aghast,

against your will, our time has passed.

One special night, we sat together

At the roof top, alone, with no other

Gazed at the moon

like we were in love's weather

I thought of so many things

Not one was like the latter

Why did you end my world

That was not over?

Why didn't I let her understand

Forever, I thought, we still had

A sharp razor blade stopped that time

I kissed the sun goodnight

When she walked pass me

Her eyes, smile made darkness sprint

I fist the earth outermost shell

When she spake gently

Her words, lips made oxygen rich

I thought I over reached

When I became your friend

Stories of your relationships

Made me pissed

My heart was pieces

Yours in particle physics

Why didn't I see the danger signs?

So blind I fell, you took your life

How dare you take what's not yours?

My love for you terrified the gods

Why did I panic and walk away?

The chain reaction was built with clay

My actions solidified your cruel mistake

As I gently listen to these tapes

Reliving the moments

Of the thirteen excuses you gave

I sought justice for your name

Life is hurt, life is vain

I'm sober, yet tipsy I feel

I can't get over you

Not now that I bleed

I'm puking all over

College dreams and SAT's

Can barely feel my feet

You're still here

Like a cancer in my body tissues

How can I test negative

To a broken heart analysis?

You can't love someone back to life

No buckets of tears will bring them back

It's a mystery that science can't reply

I can't truly explain how I feel

Just knowing I will never see her again

Makes me confused

Like I used.

Looking Back

     life pounded in sharp needle spikes

     mistakes I’ve made colored my soul

     wrong choices tarnished who I was

     wrong influences dug trenches into my psyche

     crooked paths veered off course

     married too young before I knew who I could be

     misguided career choices without a compass

     advice I didn’t follow, heading wrong way

Moving Forward

     pulled up my socks and started fresh

     faced the truth and reversed footprints

     released creativity and blended tints

     kindness to all – sweet words rebounded

     erased prejudice – we’re all the same

     took a chance – threw dart into wind

     wrote that book before I knew how

     painted that canvas with story of my life

     tried new things and honed my path

     opened soul allowing new joy inside

     new beginnings and new pleasures

     let worry fly into the breezes of change

     opened up to life and tested the future

     embraced journeys exploring new trails

     expanded my knowledge, explored my world

     painted in new light with dawning colors

     swelled with love and burst with understanding

Who I now am

     soft but strong enough to face challenges

     open mind and heart overflowing

     creative but willing to learn and expand

     giving and nurturing to those that I love

     inclusive in my feeling for people of this world

     grateful to Prose Community for opening up

     life to possibilities and hearts to understanding.

Alone in bed,

the creaks grow nearer

. . .silence. . .

He pounces, I scream!

It's my dog.

I need you.

I told you that for the last time today.

I love you.

I whispered to you for the last time today.

Please don't do it.

I cried in agony as I tried to get to you faster.

But as I heard the break in your voice 

I knew nothing I would say would help.

You don't need me, you have everyone else

One slice.

You don't love me, it's all in your head

Two slices.

I'm sorry that you think I shouldn't do it

Three slices.

Goodbye

A bottle of pills.

 New. No rips. No tears. No dog-eared pages.

Top shelf. I longed to be the first one, the book in front of the others of my kind, but I had been placed near the back. It seemed I wasn’t destined to leave the store. I would be stuck on this shelf forever. Waiting, longing to be brought home, to have my pages turned.

And then Christmastime rolled around. 1998. Decorations had been set up throughout the store. The books in front of me had been chosen and I, along with the others of my kind that remained, had been moved to a discount section. It was near the front of the store. There was hope.

Everyone glanced at me as they walked by, but not a single person ever picked me up. No one was curious enough about my contents, perhaps I wasn’t interesting enough for them. The hope was lost rather quickly.

Then she came along.

She was young-looking with long, black hair and kind, brown eyes. She was the first person, aside from the workers, who paid me any mind. For a while she scanned through my pages and before I knew it, she was carrying me out of the store in a plastic bag. I was going home. Someone would finally read all the content that filled my pages. I would finally belong to someone.

As it turned out, I was to be a gift for someone she loved. Wayne; that was the name of the man I would be given to and the name of my raven-haired savior was Claire. I figured it out by the inscription she scribbled on my inside cover:

Wayne,                   Dec. 1998

Merry X-Mas Darling!

I love you so much. I’m so

happy we are together and

nothing’s going to change that.

Love,

        Claire

What I had hoped would be a long, happy life with them turned out to be no more than a short, heartbreaking one. Their love was so true and I’ve no doubt that nothing would have ever changed how much they cared for one another, but they didn’t pull through the accident like I had hoped they would.

The day it happened, we had been moving to a new house across town. It was to be a fresh start to their flourishing love story. And then everything changed when the other car slammed into us. Everyone had hopes they would pull through and they didn’t. It wasn’t long after that I was packed into another box with the other books they had owned. We were taped shut and lugged away. I didn’t know where we going. I just knew that nothing would be the same.

When the box was opened, we were greeted by an unfamiliar face. A little man pulled us out one-by-one. This wasn’t like the other store I had been in. The books around me were in a similar condition as me.

We weren’t pristine. We had dog-eared pages. We had worn covers, some more so than others. Some of our pages were slightly torn, but we were still readable and we still clung to the hope that one day we’d find a new home.

It was years later that my savior finally came and this time it was in the form of a man.

Dear Dahlia, 

I don't know you. I'd never even heard your name until policemen broke into my house in the night, grabbed me by the throat and told me I'd taken your life.

I've never seen your face without the big red slashes they say I've made or heard your voice say anything other than the words you screamed; recorded on close- circuit television and played over and over again until my mind replays them all on its own. 

Yet you and I seem to have the most intimate connection of anyone in the world. Only we know I didn't do it.  We know that the man in the black tracksuit wasn't me. We know it wasn't my hands on your shoulders, forcing you on the ground, taking your life. Your blood is on someone else's hands, not mine. And yet, to them, standing in the courtroom throwing stones, I am drenched in it, with the murder weapon clenched firmly  in the palm of my blood- stained hand. 

I've come to accept it though, I await my last day in place of a murderer and I almost wear the title, the label, as if it was mine. I take the place of the man who killed you. I wish you could speak from wherever you are now, send a multitude of letters swirling into the courtroom, on each page emblazoned the words, 'he didn't do it' and there, on the flip side, the face of the man who did. But you seem to want to remain speechless and so I await death, as you'd awaited yours. 

Systematic, quick, humane. They tell me it will be over as quick as I came into the world, unlike how you went; slowly at the hands of a lunatic. The words are spoken with contempt, meant to remind me of how I took a life but I can only laugh at how little they know, of whose life they're about to take. 

So, dear Dahlia, I spend my last night writing a letter to you, my newfound friend. What awaits me after the first bullet leaves its barrel, I don't know. I spend my last day wondering how things could've been different, if they could've even been different. 

I hope to meet you, after it happens in a few hours. We are the same, after all; innocents whose lives were wrongly taken. I hope to sit with you in some utopia in the sky and smile perfect smiles at the day they realize what they've done and catch the man who killed us both. It will be a victory for us, I think; Having our dignities restored and relishing in an unlikely friendship between two strangers who have one too many murderers in common. 

Love, 

Not - your- killer, A friend 

A small smile plays at your lips

When you catch my gaze

The same smile I get

When I think of you.

A single touch

Seemingly so innocent 

Electrifies my very being

does it do the same to you?

How now can I be of such unsound mind

when no true acts of turpitude befall

any abhorrent dalcop who dare chide

my superb genius with arrogant gall?

Wherefore art thou all not treated as hounds?

Madness lies within ignorant vessels.

Hearken, sanity rings with charming sounds

While hark thou to the murmurs of devils.

Unbind me now from my infernal chain.

Each link I bear, deceit, for I am sane.

Why is it so hard

To say what I want to say to you?

I'm afraid I can't say

What keeps me from saying

What you mean to me.

But I hope someday

I'll learn to say

What I need to.