Just Playing The Cards I Was Dealt.  What Else Can You Do?

First Kiss

I stole a kiss from you on our first real date I couldn't help it You were in the middle of a sentence as you spoke of music and art you loved and I just leaned over and kissed you And then filled anxious nerves

"Oh" that was all you said and I apologized again and again You looked at me I looked at you and we tried again for a first kiss

For real this time

“There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened between us, like ostyt, which can be used for a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room, and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet, which is to want something so much over months and even years that when you get it, you have lost the desire.”

— Barbara Hamby, from ‘Letter to a Lost Friend’ (via halcynth)

It’s like I’m reading a book. And it’s a book I deeply love. But I’m reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you, and the words of our story but it’s in this endless space between the words that I’m finding myself now. It’s a place that’s not of the physical world. It’s where everything else is that I didn’t even know existed. I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this is who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can’t live in your book anymore.

her(2013)

True, daddy

I think people would be happier if they admitted things more often. In a sense we are all prisoners of some memory, or fear, or disappointment—we are all defined by something we can’t change.

I wish I could regret that day

But, darling I can't

I wish I could hate you

And say that's true

But I wouldn't change a thing

Not even change the kisses that

We never had

In fact I would take you

Hug you and never let go

Though I'd prefer a kiss

I wish thing's repeated themselves

Just once

I would get the feeling

I so long ache

I wish thing's repeated themselves this just this once

I miss the time's and most of all I miss you

-What Was But Is No Longer

a comic about cuddles

From Alana M. Kelley’s chapbook, In Orbit, available at https://bottlecap.press/products/orbit