We’d share smoke with each other in a dingy basement bar, your hands cupped against my cheeks as you exhale smoke and I inhale you. You always added a whispered secret — let’s go, and I followed you. Up the stairs we’d stumble, laughing and giddy from the high, nothing but lips and teeth and hands, more stumbling until we fell together into the backseat of my car. Now I don’t share the smoke, it’s mine, the high is mine too, but it’s a lonely high. You’re there, just across the table, untouchable now. You’re not mine — I exhale, pushing the smoke as far as it will reach. You watch it riser higher and higher, sucked into an air duct — our eyes meet, just for a second, and you inhale. It’s too late for that though, the smoke’s gone,
but I’m still here,
still breathing in you as you exhale me.
When I first met her she was shaking her straw colored hair out of a braid and it fell over her thin shoulders, colored like perfectly toasted marshmallows. I learned to know her as the girl with the slightly upturned nose and the big blue eyes, rose pink lips that always left lipstick stains on wineglasses. She became the girl who only cried when we were alone in her apartment with the broken window, only cried after we polished off a bottle of cheap wine. That girl whose lips were always chapped after she fell asleep drunkenly with her head in my lap and the girl with the hips like terra cotta pots and a gaze like summer bonfires. She was the girl who danced drunkenly in the lavender fields we fell asleep in so many July nights, the girl with the tired eyes when we were laying together with our cold fingers twisted together with the bright purple lavender. The girl with the precious smile and the lips that turned her to pure sex when they were on mine. She was the girl with those rosy lips that tasted like pain against mine and that girl that would move her hips against mine and that girl that I loved and that girl that
might have
loved me.
I recently got back from Champlain College young writers’ conference and it was amazing! The energy was just perfect and I felt so alive I can’t wait to be there next year studying writing like I’m meant to!
I have a bunch of writing from the conference that I’ll be queuing up soon!
“…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’” — Jack Kerouac, On the Road
i thought i’d write a poem
about the man who jumped the metal rail
scraping his hands on cold and rust
to plunge himself
his mind, his heart, his hopes, his fears, his dreams his
life
into the rushing current of niagara falls.
i thought i’d write about the rush he probably felt
as his head hit water and his legs hit rocks
as his arms twisted and turned and his fingers scraped and bled.
i thought i’d write about the
cold tick of the hospital room he’s in and the
insensitive creak of the bed he is stuck to
and i thought i’d write about how the current in the water
felt like it was too sick of death so it pushed him along
and how the rocks at the bottom of the falls, with their sharp edges and harsh gray
were in a forgiving mood and gave him a second chance
and i thought i’d write about how
the man that jumped in the falls
might be getting his chance at living twice
because the current carried him
home,
alive.
I met them when she was in a pink shirt and torn shorts and he was working at an ice cream stand by the ocean. I met them when she was lost and trying to find something and he was looking for something but he didn’t know what. I knew them when they talked for hours endlessly while the sun set in orange blazes and I knew them when he kissed her for the first time in that stuffy classroom.
I knew them when she wore a white dress that moved in the wind and when he wore a tux, a tie artfully perched at his neck. She wore tan sandals her mother made and he wore black dress shoes with dew stains. There was music and white roses, old earrings and blue necklaces, new dresses and borrowed bobby pins.
I knew them when they danced through their home on Saturday mornings with nothing on but music and the coffee pot, their bodies moving together until the sun set over the hills. I remember seeing empty wine glasses on their coffee table and the crusts from his grilled cheese on a paper towel. She walked around with no make up and mismatched underwear and he called her beautiful every morning and kissed her forehead even when she wrinkled it at him. I remember he smiled when she sang and told her she had a beautiful voice. I remember he whistled in the mornings when he made her coffee and toasted a bagel for her.
I remember when they took trips to the ocean and swam with just the moon and stars. I remember when they fell asleep in the sand, her head on his chest and his hand on her heart.
I remember their first fight and their fifth, when he slept on the couch and left for work early, but still started the coffee pot and left a bagel untoasted in the toaster for her. I remember the “I’m sorrys” and the kisses that tasted like salty apologies.
I remember their little girl, with the elfin ears of her father and clever eyes of her mother, red tufts of hair and lungs to match it.
I remember when they bought the house with four bedrooms and an ocean view, saltwater sea spray air floating through the windows every night.
I remember when they sent the little girl with long red hair to college and when they watched her marry the nice girl from Maine.
I remember when they held their grandson for the first time.
“I remember all of it,” she said, I said, and he brushed the graying hair off of my forehead and kissed its wrinkles.
“I remember all of it, too,” he said and took my hand in his.
“I love it all, ” I whispered and squeezed his hand with all my strength.
“I love you, all of you.” and he squeezed back as the sun set over the hills.
Just like that first day.
life is more than
the steady rhythm of your breathing
and the
constant ticking of the kitchen clock
I was handed a hammer with a rough handle, the wood splintering in places, the nicks in it filled with black dirt. Then a chisel, its silver handle fading to gray and the once sharp edges dull but still shining in the light. Finally, a gigantic block of stone was dropped in front of me and I was instructed to do one thing; carve. What could I carve? I am no artist; I could not turn this stone into a statue of a stately figure that conquered a country, nor am I a math enthusiast- I could not carve an algorithm. I am no scientist; I do not have the passion to create a property or theory of physics. I picked up the chisel, the handle was cold and smooth in my hand and placed the end against the stone. The hammer shortly followed and I struck the back of the chisel, a small chip flying away from the stone, spinning in slate colored wonder. Once my hands were filled with splinters and my wrists were aching, I saw that I carved words, and that’s what I needed to carve. I pushed on and carved word after word, telling a story of time and space, of wizards and witches, of wonder and of tragedy. I kept carving the words because writing occupies my mind and my heart, my soul and my conscience. I plastered the stone in words- phrases with deep gashes and hard strokes because I write out of love and passion, out of hope and wonder, out of determination and ambition- ambition that can carve a novel into stone, with just a chisel and a hammer.
No matter how many mornings you wake up alone, my lipstick stains will still be on your lips. That heater will still rattle and sigh, the window will still scream when wind bursts against the panes, rain will still leak in acid-scented drops through your rotting ceiling. Even if you wake up from a microbrewed sleep, my perfume drops will still be on your cotton pillowcase. You’ll still find my towel on the bedroom floor and my toothbrush on the cracked tile counter in the bathroom. It won’t matter how many nights you stay up with a stained wine glass; you’ll still remember the ribbons of my hair that stuck to your black sweater. No matter how many mornings you wake up alone in bright black sheets, the dark yellow sun will wake you up with dust-mote memories of my fingers in the tangles in your hair- memories of your eyes searching the tangles of my skin. No matter how many times you try to patch it, your ceiling will still leak during April storms, those window panes will still shake. Your floorboards will still creak as that heater rattles and sighs from being so old and tired. You can wake up alone for thousands of mornings, after falling asleep alone for thousands of nights, but the memory of me will still be there- even when you wish it was more than just a memory.
something really insane happened
one of my pieces was featured and then received over 1,000 notes, putting that post as the most popular post in the prose tag, and then a bunch of new people started following me
I am honestly in such awe that so many people, mostly strangers who have no obligation or feeling of obligation to lie and tell me they like my writing, appreciate my writing this much.
I’m going to keep the sappiness on this post to a minimum but I really am genuinely appreciative of all of you who support me endlessly and everyone here who likes my writing enough to follow me. Because of your unfailing support, I decided to pair up with a local gallery and I will potentially be publishing about 500 copies of a collection of short stories and poetry that have not been posted here. Exciting stuff!!!
I love you all, thank you so much.
