“No.”

Time seemed to freeze as she watched that one single word escape from his lips before he walked off into the sunset. The moment replayed itself over and over in her mind as she allowed herself to crumble to the ground. At first she wasn’t sure if it was reality or just a bad dream, but a simple pinch to the cheek told her the truth.

She wasn’t dreaming

Her fingers dug into the earth as she clenched the ground, holding onto the long tufts of grass as if it were her only lifeline to the world around her. Her breathing was shallow and her head was facing the ground, but she could barely make out the blades of grass through the tears in her eyes. She allowed her mind to wander as her body remained frozen in time.

She had been defeated.

After weeks of dreaming about him and wishing for the moment that he would accept her feelings, she had decided to tell him. The courtyard had looked so beautiful in the setting sun – it was a picture perfect moment. There was no better time in the world to confess.

She had been so wrong.

Her dreams of finding a prince to love her and sweep her off her feet were gone. Reality was nothing like the books she always buried her nose in. In those realities he would have said yes and she would have gladly taken his arm and run off with him.

She had been naïve.

Reality was different. Reality was terrifying and the lingering memory of his rejection was painful. It was an alarm set just a few minutes before the right time, and instead of waking up to find the sun shining, she was waking up to find her world being torn down before her very eyes.

And it was darker than she could have ever imagined.

As the term dejection comes to mind, rejection arrives to heart. Two young lovers, so full of innocence, so deprived of logical knowledge at this moment, one filled so much with tears and the other yearning to break free from the guilt-constructed chains of lifeless intimacy. The heart-breaker breaks the news, spills the beans and tea, grasping for the scissors and working away at the string which bonds the pair together, cut by cut. Desperate for a reason, for another chance, for an explanation, the heart-maker pleads and cries with a chest full of questioning dejection and lunges towards the scissors of rejection, hands bleeding with curdling affection. As the final slash destroys the chains, the breaker spreads the tight wings of remorse and flies into the winds of non-committal freedom. The rejected, rejected, unprotected soul with half a heart gone, slowly walks uphill the path of recovery into the stormy light of later life. Decades pass, and the lone heart fills and heals with the warmth of another, which takes a sharp turn into bitter, sour, cold states. The eternal bond of marriage ceases to exist after years of love and protection by the frustrated significant other who wants so much more than this life, who pleads and begs and wishes to run off to their true calling, away from this storm of a marriage that had granted so much happiness at first, but had deteriorated into confusing nothingness. Agitated with guilt, the spouse with no more feelings leaves nothing behind but a stack of heart-shattering papers with words typed in emotionless, black ink, signed with handwriting that the heart-broken, who now again is recognizing this guttural, depressed, feeling from years before, thought that they had known so extremely well. Eternities later, the warrior broken of love and filled with wallowing deject-filled rejection, the lover of a new human mends their torn heart, each ripped seam of the past stitched with intimacy of their pure, untouched, soulmate for whom they have waited an entire lifetime for, the past two lovers admitting only as obstacles in the great journey of life. Although old in age, the pair are young and free with each other. But alas, even with love everlasting and immortal, physical age cannot keep up. The person who had fixed and cradled the broken other in the last few years of life perishes into the next life, the afterlife, the non-existence, nothing. This unbeknownst rejection of age and health too strong for one to handle physically was to much for the other to handle mentally in an entirely different body and perishes an hour, a day, a thousand years later, draining themself of loss, dejection, rejection. There is no exact moral to this awful tale, but a point. For each life has as much a vivid and complex story as another, some are unfortunately filled with the destruction of rejection, especially in the form of love.      

I want it

Bite me

Rake your nails all over me

Grab my hips until they bruise

Push and pull and pin until I'm gasping for breath

I know I can be wanted

I'm soft, sexy, so ready

I'll give as good as I get

Scar for scar, moan for moan

You won't hear anything but your name echoing off the walls

I've just got one request

One thing to make it just how I want it

The rest is up to you

Make it burn, make it hit me deep and hard and inescapable 

I want to remember this

My dream 

is no different from my reality,

except - 

I am strong.

I do not always speak,

but when I do

the words are

powerful - 

not forceful,

but expressive, and genuine, and me.

My reality

is no different from my dream,

except - 

no - 

even 

my strength.

You give me a smile

And tell me you can make it "worth my while"

Well on the subject of worth

I'm worth more than you

So you can take your smile

And shove it up your ass

Because I'm more than an object for your pleasure

I'm more than something to be tamed

My body is my own

And no means no

Don't do it again. 

Don't hold my hand.

Don't kiss me goodbye.

Don't tell me you miss me.

Don't tell me you were jealous.

Don't promise me answers

You know you won't give.

Don't make me feel right

And then leave me wrong.

Don't do anything at all.

We have been mountains apart

And time has split us further.

I have a feeling in my heart

And time keeps us apart.

I fell asleep.

I was tired.

I opened my eyes

And I was in a different world,

Not sleeping,

Not tired.

I saw you behind the counter,

You were not smiling.

Neither was I during the encounter.

All the while standing far back.

Has the love gone from me?

Like water that turns to vapor,

Or like an epiphany

Lost forever?

I want to say that I am truly happy to see you,

But I think that is not the truth.

There's something not real about it all.

It's like I'm dreaming.

You are nothing short of flawed perfection. 

The fat on your hips or the laugh of your lips

Say nothing but beautiful over and over. 

You will forget this, but those that matter most to you

Will remind you over and over again

Because you are worth it. 

The child hugged the stuffed toy like it gave him life,

Was the very being that had given him life and was all he'd ever wanted.

He clutched it lovingly as he battled his father's single word with his own.

Shouting only one word.

The girl looked again in the mirror, watching her movements.

The woven fabric hugged her stick body, yet flowed around her legs.

Mature clothing for an immature face, yet questioning her mother didn't approve.

Saying only one word.

The teen looked at the display of love and passion exchanged through lips.

The one he bared flowers, chocolates, even skin to had her arms around another.

The one he had confided in, played games with, even comforted during low times.

Whispering only one word.

The woman roughly wiped her face of tears for one as she approached another.

She stood up and ran over to the drunkard, the idiot, the ignoramus of a moron,

The one that had caused it all, cost her it all, her husband, her son, her life.

Screaming only one word.

The elder clutched his wife's hand, as she was dressed to her best.

Lying on the ragged bed, in a nearly torn dress, surrounded by all they could afford.

Dressed in his one outfit, his veteran's uniform, tears fell off his face onto a face,

With eyes that would never see again, a mouth that would never speak again.

Speaking but a single word.