offbyzero

if parallel dimensions exist, then somewhere there is a me that actually lost you. i don't think she is doing very well. i wonder if she has even gotten out of bed. i wonder if she believes that this is all a nightmare she just can't wake up from. i believe i would if i was her. i feel so very sorry for her, knowing that you are still here with me now. knowing that i can still hear the solidarity, the steadiness, the safety...the things in your voice that are justified but i cannot explain because the english language does not have enough words for describing sound. i think that's part of why sometimes we only make noises to each other. wor

I'll kiss you first if you kiss me but I'm not ready for lips just yet just pelvic bones, please with a side of clavicles, and the curve of your back, as you tower over me, four limbs on each exit. just your hair, please, that long, soft hair, like an evening in silk, perfumed with the scent of summer evenings. (those ripe summer evenings, as the sun begins to collapse beyond the mountains, and our toes dig deeper into the greener grass, our minds tickled by the idea of experience and adventure calling our names.) no kisses yet, please, just taut hearts strung up by our winking eyes and numb fingertips. just tease and

Thump. This is me against your bare chest - because you asked me to rest there, because that's where I want to be. Thump. You have a calm heartbeat, though sometimes it quickens without warning. I can only guess what you're thinking about at those times, just like I can only have nightmares about the scars on your back. My fingers graze along the long lines across your spine, a texture that doesn't match the rest of your skin. Thump. I have to go soon. I always have to go soon. You always have to drive me there, too. And then you hold me for a little longer, telling me you don't want us to part, as if I can change that. I'm late to every

with my stomach cemented to the greasy alley floor, you hum a few feet away from me, "down, down, down it goes." the bottle rolls a tick tack ting when your hand releases its grip on the opaque brown neck. it continues its wind chime gurgle as it leaves us long past when i can't hear it anymore. i imagine it tumbling into the street, neon lights reflected and mirrored along its cheap, curved structure, a moment of tainted beauty before a passing wheel crushes it into dust. i must be thinking aloud because you hear me murmur incoherently. though, what you hear is "i'm gonna hurl," when i swear i said "once dust, always glass." it's just anot

I remember segments of you. I'm not sure if they're all real. I'm not sure that they're not the work of my imagination. I used to be able to tell - recall which were my own daydreams and which were actual snapshots of you in the past. Those times when you breathed, smiled, frowned, sang, danced, held me, sobbed, sniffled, rubbed your eyes, and drove with your fingers tapping a beat on the wheel. - - - I don't know where I am anymore. - - - It's dark. But it's morning. There's an eggshell white wall behind you, layered with blurry posters I can't make out. I know what some of them should be, because I know we're in your room and I've been

when he told that story about the halloween party, you laughed and raised your eyebrows at the part about not knowing how he got home. crazy stuff, he nodded, blue lunchbox in hand as you went through the double front doors of the school. hands were waved and grins exchanged as you went your separate ways for the weekend, both knowing that there was so much the other didn't know. both of you would suffer late nights and itchy veins, but he wouldn't guess the reason you scratched. you knew you shouldn't have gone along with it. there was a pleading voice in your chest asking him to invite you next time. you'd make sure that he got home, that

you should hear the things she says. her doting father would rip his ears away, and that never-mentioned mother might set rainbows aflame. but you would be untouched, unharmed. that's why you're the only one who can save me now. - - - her words make it seem like she is quietly poised beside me, barely denting the white bedsheets. her skin slides past mine, smooth like marble. cool breath tickles the curve along my neck, chilling my spine with a flush of ice. my lips tremble, my thighs flex, my chest stirs. Her slender, suave fingers curl along my bent knees. i cannot look at her face when she says these things. instead, i take the easy roa