Twenty Three.

"Come here, boy." My body bends, arches towards her hum. 

"Come here, boy." That tune is familiar, tugging at a memory hiding deep within.

"Come here, boy." I can't fight the pull of her sounds, her rhythm, her pulse. 

"Come here, boy." I wish I could ask her to stop, even as I beg her to continue.

"Come here, boy." A siren song, the bite of waves nipping at my ankles, undertow claiming my skin like forgotten baggage.

"Come here, boy." I barely hear her now, her melody lost, bouncing somewhere above the twisting sea. 

"Come here, boy."

I'm here. But where are you?

Twenty Two.

These graceful lies
spill from lips that burn
as they graze the skin on my neck
but I can't hear them,
can't detect the mask
that hides your
crooked smile
even as my fingers slide
over razor-sharp edges,
because you're beautiful
and I love you,
and those are blinding words,
denial words
when things get tough,
and I know that
but I can't look you in the eye
because I don't want to know
and have to give you up.

I'd rather keep you here,
feel your warmth,
at least for now,
than force myself
to accept the truth.

Twenty One.

I sit on my living room floor,
apartment walls safely standing,
television screen clearly projecting
destruction,
smoke and glass,
broken homes,
broken bodies of
children
with their entire lives
to lose,
lost, gone,
blinked out
like a star exploding
a million miles away
and it all seems
so
far
away
but it's not.
It's in my house,
it's in my eyes,
it's in my heart now
and it's heartbreaking,
shattering
and wrong, so wrong
that it takes my breath away.
I am speechless
but now is the time to speak.

It's time for someone to speak.

Twenty.

Which came first -
the chicken or the egg?

Better question!
Which came first -
the writer or the idea?

Should be easy answer,
but it isn't
is it?

Do I birth ideas
(therefore, writer first)
or do ideas birth me
(therefore, idea first)?
Would I have been the writer
had the idea not struck me,
or is it that I was born the writer
and later discovered the idea?

Perhaps I am some anomaly
in which neither came first
then second
but simultaneously
as if by divine creation?

Perhaps that was a bit presumptuous.

Nineteen.

I don't know why some things hurt.

Small things,
things without sticks or stones,
things without fangs or knives or claws,
things with no pulse,
things with no words.

You click a button,
I gasp,
breath catching in that sensitive spot
only reached by intended pain,
intended rejection.

You click a button,
I drown,
waves of guilt overwhelming
a clean conscience.

I don't know why some things hurt,
why this hurts,
but it does.

It does.

Maybe the "why?" doesn't matter.

Eighteen.

Beauty is lost in
the cascade of pastel, in
the twist of frame, in
the disappearance
reappearance
disappearance
reappearance
of light.

Beauty is marred by
the flux of brilliance, by
the drone of beads, by
the distance
closeness
distance
closeness
of glass.

But
what
does
beauty
matter
anyway?

Seventeen.

Sometimes, it feels like drowning:
water fighting my lips
filling my mouth
tickling my throat
collapsing my lungs
until stars fall from the sky
and litter my eyes
and shape my vision
and my nose is burning, burning
like acid from the chemistry lab
claiming my skin
and choosing to destroy it,
and my limbs are weightless
numb
unnecessary
and useless,
my heart sputtering
like an engine overheating
pulsing with life
but aching with death.

Sometimes, love feels like drowning.