I.

We are caught.

We say we can't

let each other go,

so let's not.

II.

Cocooned,

we will watch

film noir,

and kiss and

kill and kiss

and bang bang.

III.

I am straight-edge

on making you

hell-bent.

IV.

You are a

four-lead clover

in a tree-leafed

existence.

V.

I get flighty, sometimes.

This skin is too tight for

the birds in my chest.

VI.

I been through

your cool social graces.

I am caught in the

whitest darkness.

VII.

Sometimes,

there is nothing

to forget and

everything to

remember.

VIII.

Thinking of us

vertically is enough

to give me vertigo.

IX.

A thousand thunderstorms later,

I am still your 2 am lullaby.

X.

For all I know,

I don't know.

And maybe,

I don't have to.

Look at me I'm having fun

on snapchat.

Look at me I'm having fun

on twitter.

Look at me I'm having fun

on instagram.

Look at me I'm having fun

on facebook.

Look at me

I'm having fun.

Look at me.

Do you see?

I'm having fun.

Fun.

Fun...

I'm having fun.

I love the shades! The way that mimics the shape of your arms. The shadow of a bare hands, fighting against fire winds.

I love the shades! In them a fragile tear erases, the tremulous light of a farewell. which returns, that goes away, which doesn't return.

I love the shades, because the life stops when I name you. In the light I don't find the words for to describe your absence. In the darkness I learn the meaning of love you.

Loneliness is an immense gap, between the body and the hands, which inhabit dark and smoky ruins. In the shades fall down the useless hours of the time, fall asleep and the world becomes small.

I love the shades, because in them it's burning these words, when the night it's dark and rough. In the nights always rests the existence, the dark boundaries of time.

I love you like yesterday, I will love you like today, and will follow you loving like the tomorrow. I will fill with dreams, as with rain a tree. In my dark ravings you always come back, there are no times, dark limits don't exist in my dreams.

Where is the word? Why has the silence broken? Don't let your eyes darken, denying me the light of the life. Next to you although far, you're absent; and only remain these shades which I love.

I came here

Restless & afraid I wouldnʼt be able

To sleep later

Tonight

Watching the sun

Melt away

Like a disappearing grin

Another day dying

To itself

The slow death

In all of us

Measured by

Our constant anxiety

Outside together

In the fading laughter

Of others

Living their lives

Playing their games

Aiming for a love

That takes us to the edge

A love we hope

Isnʼt a mistake

Or an end

Risking everything

Not to be alone

Not to say we never tried

We are most alive when we realize

We're dying

Drinking to

Escape

Putting on

The same old clothes

Unable to change

Anything

As always

As if I were the last one

To sit here

On this bench

Staring at images

Of an upside down world

Reflected on the surface

Of an aging river

The blood of the earth

Mysteriously moving through us

Quietly carrying with it

The madness

Of a language barely

Understood

I have been here before

Editing whatever

Comes to mind

The same familiar buzz

Sometimes repeated as words

Other times

As wind in the trees

Playing tricks

On mindless birds

Always looking for a place

To land

I sit here outside

Alone

Until my shadow dissolves

The streetlights

Come on

A plane passes over me

Like the angel

Of death

& vanishes

In the dark, my eyes cannot see. My heart cannot feel and my mind is not free.

 As a seed in the soil not knowing what's to come; trapped in the Earth awaiting the unknown. Planted in time, without a clue of what I may become, in darkness, away from the world. In my home of comfort, patiently waiting until the day im able to indure the light.Then reaching out of the ground as a dead corpse; I finally come to life... 

What's next? As the seasons change and so do I?

What's my purpose? What do I do?

When the next season is not my season.

The thought of you remaining in my life as a close friend someday did not cross my mind when you warmly whispered into my freezing ear that abandoning me is not possible. You chose to take advantage of your cleverness like you did the evening I asked if you love me. What I truly meant to ask in those moments was if you would ever cease to view me as a romantic partner, and if you were in love with me. Each response you gave me was incomparably breathtaking, but unbelievably deceptive the way a genie’s promise can be, and I was a naive fool who should have been more specific with his words.

–Angel Rigali

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

"You got what I want?"

In haste, Kay slid the small velvet bag to the shadowy figure across the table and palmed the vial of purple liquid that he uncovered, slipping it into the money pouch she kept tethered around her naked waist.

Maybe it was her cat-human genes' natural aversion to reptiles - or maybe it was that he was a crime lord and a major creep, which fueled the barely concealed aggravation she felt whenever she was near Snake.

Music like the panicked caws of a thousand grackles filled the night club - Gaia Grunge. Her cat-like grace and grotesque hand-like feet had made Kay a star among the go-go girls who worked the poles and cages for tips.

The dance floor was crowded with animal-human hybrids of every imaginable form. An ancient time traveler from the 21st century would think they'd stumbled into a Halloween party - but these were no costumes. Once mankind learned to "write" genes, there was an explosion of bio-diversity driven evolution, as parents sought to give their progeny any possible advantage in a world coming apart at the seams.

"You wanna' get together after your shift?" Snake's bifurcated tongue flicked from his lipless mouth, the lewd gesture dislodged a tiny drop of liquid from one of his fangs.

"Can't. I've got stuff to do," she said, pushing her untouched drink away. Reptos' venom wasn't fatal, but a drop in a drink had an extreme tranquilizing effect. The guy was a walking roofie.

She was so close to her dream now. The vial she'd just acquired with tech she'd cat-burgled early that night, combined with her go-go tips, would buy her a pair of dainty dancer's feet that fit ballerina shoes.

Kay would escape the tedium of the club and one day dance Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet with the Old Russia Ballet Company.

-DeRicki

I wake and see the field set ablaze by the rising sun.

The sun grows from the hill and my sunrise garden is flourishing.

The thought strikes me.

My love is leaving me today.

I jump from my bed and fly down the stairs, already falling time now rocketing down upon me.

As I approach the door and reach for the knob, I have a dark hope that he won't be there so he cannot see me weep.

But as I fling open the door, I run straight into my departing love.

We kiss and his lips are jelly sweet.