On Scent

unsent

i don’t like saying ‘i love you’ because my heart catches in my throat every time,

the truth can be written with greater ease:

i love you so much it hurts.

and i know you so well, all of you

yet your favorite color still surprises me

i cannot think of who you’d get along with, or what you’d like

because you’re mine, even if i know, i know it’s just a little part.

i think the beauty and fear of knowing someone comes from the vastness.

because you are an endless impossibility,

a miracle.

shall i compare thee to a summer’s day?

or a winter’s night?

or the first taste of spun sugar, melting on the tongue?

shall i compare thee to a sunrise, all dusky blues and cadmium hopes?

shall i compare thee to the calm before the storm,

the silence that descends at the first pluck of a string;

reverent?

you are more than all of it, of course, and maybe one day,

when it feels a little less raw,

when a brush against my skin doesn't send ice skittering through my lungs,

maybe in a week or two,

i can show this to you,

all rapt nervousness and unmet gaze

even in the surety of reciprocity.

and maybe i would say, ‘i’m sorry’,

and you would understand that if i felt it any less

then i swear i would tell you so.

on fall

fall is a season for the lovers

transitory and fleeting,

never quite settling in one place or time

fall is never landing,

a leaf carried by the wind

pushed by forces outside you

to places you didn’t want to be, perhaps

but you find yourself there regardless.

fall is the gentle whisper of the breeze, transformed

to the violence of a hurricane

wind chapped skin, fingernails brittle, you fall.

clawing for something you’ll never have

praying for something you’ll never be

desperate to affix yourself to the branch

but you’re adrift now, and

there’s no going back.

fall is still falling,

after the storm ends

after everyone moves on and forgets,

fall is left behind.

memory trapped in a brittle, orange leaf

sliding to rest on the slope of a dying hill

“home at last,” it whispers, as it flakes away

“home at last”

on winter

come winter, i am flimsy,

waxen paper on dry breeze

crumpled by the pressure, and

hardened by the cold

come winter, i can’t. 

every breath hurts to breathe

frost forced down your lungs, 

spider fingers in your veins, it

peels off your jacket

it ignores whimper of pain

biting your skin,

frozen heartbeat gone

come winter, it hurts

and you don’t want to fight

it is someone else,

naked, battered,

beaten, bruised 

but it is you, knocking on that door

it is you, begging to be let in

ember dying in the cold,

frost-bitten fingertips and

stone cold pit to be thawed.

it is you, feathers sodden by rainfall

petrichor dirt freshly churned on your grave

and desperate plea,

and hope for something better

it is you, who shakes off the water

and emerges, drenched in warmth,

ready, now, yearning, 

to be set alight

on spring

pastel sunrise, mottled green

flower bloom, thawed stream

spring is upon us, the air is clean

crisp cloud cuts the sky

and there’s a gleam in your eye

an adventure there, and i want to follow

outstretched hand, t-shirts at dusk

grassy knoll, abandoned park

mosquitos buzz and bat them away

air cool and perfumed with the breeze of the day

and there’s a bed waiting when you get home

and the silence is warm when you’re alone

sky open above you and dizzy with fear

the grip of nostalgia never felt so real

until now, grass flat beneath your back

and sand between toes, pretty rock in backpack

teetering on the precipice of all you have known

at once still so young, at once so near grown

living felt stagnant but the answer was clear

every me nested in me, stacked years upon years

the coming of spring still awakens such thrill

and the promise of budding spreads dreams anew:

this was never a middle, as the pond is never still

but the beginning of everything, and everything that will

smoke and mirrors

i want you to make me pretty

unmake who i was beneath your hands

take all my soft parts and sharpen me

press me to you to find no curved edge

i want you to push down where it hurts

i want you to yield me a secret

you can’t break something already broken

i already know you'll never keep it

don’t ask to know me,

go on, make me anew

see me where no one has seen

i can pretend i was what you drew

look in the places that matter the least,

lick the tears from my cheeks and bite down

strip me to skin to skin, but

there will always be space, no matter how thin

i want you to taste me

take a day or two to wash the scent

miss me when i’m gone; won’t you?

convince me not to pretend

it isn’t kind, is it? to yourself, nor i

making mirrors and posing and refracting light

you can try, but we’ll never see eye to eye

even when silk drape isn’t on your mind

smoke and mirrors, painful prayer, nothing to see

you will never make a beggar of me

agape

i love him the most in the gentleness of sleep,

he is at his softest then

eyes closing to the sounds of the world,

nose buried against my leg

claws retracted,

mouth soft and yielding

no twitch of the ear,

nor flicker of the eye,

vulnerability earned and cherished,

a kiss and gentle pet accepted,

i adore you most in the quiet of the night,

sparkling eyes slip shut,

soft belly bared to the world

breaths even and unmeasured,

curled up, awaiting

indefinitely, unknown

cowardice (2)

it's not you now, its something else

it's easier to love

a vesicle for influence,

torpid machine of thought

and its better this way, it doesn’t hurt

when someone hurts something you’re not

but when the colors blur,

it always comes to end

in the darkness of the bedroom,

in the darkness of your head

when you close your eyes to sleep

when there’s noone there to tell you

a part of you, the one thats you,

always, it will know:

the truth is the lump in your throat,

the truth is in dexterous hand

the truth is in a crooked smile,

pointing to the sand

they taught you to hate yourself,

but what you should hate is them

we were borne from the lake,

to the lake we meet our end

the mirror was not meant to be

neither silver nor black facade

something we weren’t meant to see,

wan face reflected back

it's your fingertips on petals,

it's your toes in the grass

it's your lungful of fresh air,

even if it is your last

you wish to fulfill potential,

you wish that you were tough

don’t weep nor mourn what cannot be

you always were enough

excerpt from ch 9

Zela’s place was not here. Not in this restaurant, not with these people. The sooner she recognized that, the sooner she could get over it.

Wiping angry tears from her blotchy face, she rushed out into the cool night air, retreating to the safety of her car.

She slammed the steering wheel. Once. Twice. And then she crumpled.

Was it so bad to have company pride? To love what she did? Should she not adore her workplace and the people who worked there?

She fished out the rook, placing it gently on the dashboard. She still remembered it as if it were yesterday – Christmas, age twelve. The snow was falling hard outside, and Zela had woken up to a wonderland blizzard. The family had stayed inside, yelling in joy, chasing each other, wrapping paper strewn across the carpet. Her father had swung Malin around, who, of course, was jubilant. Zela watched, wanting to join, but Darren couldn’t hold two daughters at once. So her mother had pulled her from behind, shouting and grinning. She had brought down the chessboard from the shelf, and said with candy eyes and a nutmeg tongue, I think it’s time you learned the game.

Zela refused to stop until she won, but hours passed, and she couldn’t. After her fourth checkmate by the rook and a break for dinner, Zela snuck the piece off the board. Her mother pretended not to notice. Kita won anyway – but she never asked for the piece back.

Zela didn’t win that day. Nor could she the next, or the next week, or the next month.

Within the year, they were at a stalemate. After a year, Zela was consistently winning.

After two years, Zela started high school. According to her mother, there wasn’t time for chess anymore. There wasn’t time for family.

Her chest ached.

She still remembered the scent, the laughter. The warmth of four bodies in the same room. She still remembered the music. 

Zela exhaled, half expecting to see her breath puff before her. But it was summer, and the snow hadn’t come in years. 

from a fall walk home

i walked a stranger's footsteps today,

there seemed a poem in that

i turned my feet to match his gait

slowed mine to his own crooked path

he walked with haste irregular

tempo change could not meet the eye

but i felt it, for a minute, we were one

on that path, in that space, he and i

he does not know, for a minute there

another walked his rhythym

his stride was longer, his steps were quicker

perhaps he sought to make haste

and sure, it was weird

he would have found it so, too

but for that minute i was him in delay

i understood his perception

and the give of his limbs

i knew of his body's affections

soon our steps fell into disfavor

before leaf underfoot gave way

we were entities once more, unique paths on the ground

before my door, i turned but he walked away

maybe i will see him again, on my mellow walk home

maybe our eyes will connect

i would not know him by feature nor face

but maybe i’d fall into step

and recognize a gait from a dream long ago

a temporal space once inhabited

it was you, i would think, i was you for a minute

and we’d pass by and walk on again

sleepless

it whispers to me, 

it wants to know

it will not quiet

it can’t let go

beside my pillow,

loud beat of heart

it cannot stop,

it cannot start

curiousity disquiets the head

circulate, metabolism

energified, stomach dread

tap of toe, pick of finger

sensual slide of bared leg

i cannot settle, unscratched itch,

i will not ever be at rest