Two more months. She sank into the old leather couch.  Soothing piano notes floated from her little speaker onto the stale air’s unclaimed molecules, lifting the dim house’s oppression.  Turning, she brushed back the flimsy curtains to let the light in, only to notice goopy bodies of dried paint around the window.  Tiny holes in the walls glared like beady black eyes.  She looked down at the floor she’d installed while pr...

When you dam your words From my ear Do they surf upon dust motes Dead leaves and exhaust  Sunshine and humidity And eke through  cracks in windows and doors To present themselves to my skin Do I absorb them Like a dying woman  Does water Are they the reason I still walk Still drink Still breathe Even with  a spirit on mute Or do they rest upon My chest, Weighting each breath, For a death that beds  The rest of my days

Blind  Bound I survive in noise And knowledge That you live in the ether Beside me,  That I do not Suffer alone.    But her voice, Fragile as eggshells, Gifts devotion, Adoration, Through the fraying seams Holding our world in place.  Her scent  Peels back the twine  Clasping my skin And seals, Proliferating Like a thousand spores,  Covering my flesh with scales.    The air is thick With your unintelligible  Response And...

Tonight is the night.  It has to be.  Anticipation drew in her soul tight. Celeste stared through the statue’s eyes at the crumbling red brick below.  Spanish moss clumped at her cracked toes, early morning fog saturating what she could see of the air in her peripheral vision.  Molded in place, she had all her senses and none of her muscularity.   It’d been three hundred years.  Three hundred years since the night that wi...

Can’t tell you I love you Though your voice lives in my bonesYour words upon my breastsYour touch, forever lingeringThe days I drank of you,Rebuilt upon your breathLive now in reflections,Mosaics of memoryBuried in the abyss That used to be me.I drape my love over youLike armorBut vault the words,Protect me from themProtect me from youSo fold me up like paperAnd toss me into the windSpeak to me ofFlowers and photos and li...

There are times I feel adriftNot quite alive,Not groundedNot feeling much of anythingThen you reach outA textA callA touchAnd I exist again,In the curl of your smileAnd my answering grinMaybe we ground each other,In this swirling, blurring world,With a love so quiet So powerfulThat sometimes it Doesn’t need a voiceBut a touch A lookA kissMy heart is yoursDuring all life’s adventuresBut also in the stillness,The quiet,The...

Crystal blue eyes. The type that on another girl could look dramatic or vulnerable. Even soul piercing. But squinted by a smile too small for her boxy face and caked with a thick rim of black makeup, she appeared exactly how she really was: trying too hard. “Just this once.” Giggling, Blake’s blonde girlfriend rounded the desk countertop. Craned her neck to look up at him as she pulled the white drawstring of his swim sho...

The dream was over, crashing and burning with dawn. Nothing should’ve stopped them. The gate should’ve been open. Under the mask the housekeeper had given her, she’d only gone to the party to observe, to experience a night in this foreign country. It hadn’t been long until her modesty lifted with the pulse of the crowd, the pull of the energy, and the recklessness of life. Someone handed her the cape, she shed her dress a...

She flipped the mask around to the back of her head. It looked like she had her face on backward as she led him by the hand up a little cobbled lane built in a century of donkeys and carts. Burnt russet hair flowed around the edges of the mask, falling over her shoulder blades as he trailed her, gripping her hand as her lithe arm extended straight back. He was sorely tempted to stop short and force her to turn so he could...

Break this down Particle by particle Compare the matter To the grand scheme And blow it awayTo wherever dust twirls In a snowglobe of memoriesLike how my mouth brushed Your rough cheek, Or the satin of your lips, My fingers running through That crop of soft hair And over your smooth skinBlink.See the moments Where the sunCaught the stars Burning in your eyes, Licking gold over The flip of your lashes As your crooked smile...

Steve squeezed her hand. He nearly bowed with a nod, as if encouraging her to tell Josh the truth. To face the things about herself that weren’t normal, or even normally abnormal. Things she’d never admit to the people closest to her. Never tell Pierce. They’re leaving anyway. Daphne tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ear, her gaze tracing Josh’s young, innocent face. The faintest shadow of stubble scrubbed his c...

Time was a villain. As unassuming as still water and heavy enough to drown in. A cool breeze stole the searing bite from the bonfire before Daphne, and she wished it could regenerate what had already been burned. Her childhood. Early adulthood. And the end of the only relationship she’d had where someone seemed to care for her. She was going through the motions but she’d never been happy. Hopeful, but not happy. Life was...

When the sun is a glimmer of pink Stabbed by black shadows of treetops I breathe the memory of your breath in the darkness, The ether that held you moments before, And all future’s plans That weigh on undercurrents Of what ifs We’ll have our day Hands linked Faces sore With smiles As we voice our vows And send laughter searching Through layers of wind For the first whispers of our love So long ago For there is a breeze th...

The crowd hushed and turned to Brad, their simultaneous movements like a wave rushing the sea. Their eyes were wide. Brows raised. Waiting for him to fall on his face. To give them the final nail in his coffin. He wasn’t going to. Brad kept a smile plastered over his face even though his heart felt like it dropped into his stomach. Ginger squeezed his hand. They stood on the back lawn of their sprawling mansion on the ban...

Lilting melodies Ghost through sunlightIn the tattered theme parkCircling the lovers Like a haunted merry go roundOf Valentine’s memoriesMotes of springWhirl around their humid fleshAs the park’s lullaby lathersInto the blur of the worldAnd shadows deepenHe kisses fantasiesOn her open lips,His steady touch Silencing the static“Trust me.”Hypnotized by his smile,She followsLooks back,Only for a moment,To see night stranglin...