Sickness

The medicine is too cold to be real. It looks like a sack of over-eaten bread - brown and slightly soggy." Her eyes were too brown. Her hands shook slightly, like leaves, making her feel soft and insubstantial. She wore wool sweaters to keep out the cold, and wrapped her shawls around her like a toga. Maybe her fragility was more that of a grecian urn, waiting to be broken, only she lacked the grace of glazed pottery, strewn with shields and men who felt each other's thighs.

You remember him and think of every wrong you've ever done, and tell yourself not to be such a girl. You imagine his eyes piercing into the un-heaviness of every step, the slight totter you have when you've drunk too much coffee, and you long for wine.

Sometimes you wonder if your body has failed you. The heart has grown tired of pumping and your legs resemble shriveled twigs; your skin has become moldy, like rotten figs. Perhaps if you could suck the sap from his lips, you would feel the like you again; a strong sapling yearning gently for the grass - but his lips have shriveled up like dry figs; his voice has grown softer than your breasts and quieter than the beating of your heart.

At night, there are no more shadows - only the moon softly curving over the your windowpane, like a lover trying to hug her lost lover.

Letting you go

Do friendships flower and fade

like the wind, like the rush of your hair

that visits my cheek and is gone,

as knees disentangle from thighs?

"Leave your key in the mantelpiece on the way out."

"God, who has mantelpieces anymore? This sounds like a fucking movie."

"Sometimes life imitates art."

In the dark, I can not see your face as you turn the corner.

I recline, relishing the sheets against my skin, and breathe in -

the scent of pines drifts in through the half-open window.

Nostalgia punches like a girl.

But I can not regret - not having had you, not having let you go.

Jerusalem Alternative

Lying on a couch of blue and yellow, I drape over the sides like a piece of stray shawl, feeling like a figure in a Mattisse painting. My elbow and back ache with a pain that is not desire. I do not notice the bump until later, the distinct feeling of something sticking out, and curse myself for not taking X-rays. Radiation - how unromantic.

Meanwhile, I breathe in the scent of pine trees, ignoring the numbness spreading through my arm, and envision caffeine dripping into my body, atom by atom invading my bloodstream, running into my bladder in rivulets of pure coffee. They say that withdrawal killed Amy Winehouse. I picture her sitting there, brown hair framing a fading face, waiting as the lack of poison wreaks havoc in her body. I think I love her then; this woman I have not met, whose music I've only heard twice - I hear her voice singing melodies I half-remember.

The wind stirs the glass door, and I grow afraid. I hear the mewing of cats, a song of mourning in the distance, and I long for the days when I did not care enough to curse caution. I only cared enough to laugh in his face before climbing trees. I would throw down the rotting apples;their skins were mushy and soft, like the inside of your face, like the space between our thighs.

"Call me a woman", you once said, thrusting out your chin like a phallus.

Today my echo was lost amid pine trees and a rush of crappy cars.

"The search for woman is eternal. It is a search for the fountain of life, for our youth, for our joy, It is a search for ourselves."

I am still calling

Jerusalem

Lying on a couch of blue and yellow, I drape over the sides like a piece of stray shawl, feeling like a figure in a Mattisse painting. My elbow and back ache with a pain that is not desire. I do not notice the bump until later, the distinct feeling of something sticking out, and curse myself for not taking X-rays. Radiation - how unromantic.

Meanwhile, I breath in the scent of pine trees, ignoring the numbness spreading through my arm, and envision caffeine dripping into my body, atom by atom invading my bloodstream, running into my bladder in rivulets of pure coffee. They say that withdrawal killed Amy Winehous. I picture her sitting there, brown hair framing a fading face, waiting as the lack of poison wreaks havoc in her body. I think I love her then; this woman I have not met, whose music I've only heard twice - I see the long brown locks, the thighs, hear the voice singing melodies that were half-created in my brain.

The wind stirs the glass door, and I grow afraid. I hear the mewing of cats, a song of mourning in the distance, and I long for the days when I did not care enough to curse caution. I only cared enough to laugh in his face before climbing trees. I would throw down the rotting apples;their skins were mushy and soft, like the inside of your face, like the space between our thighs.

"Call me a woman", you once said, thrusting out your chin like a phallus.

Today my echo was lost amid pine trees and a rush of crappy cars.

"The search for woman is eternal. It is a search for the fountain of life, for our youth, for our joy, It is a search for ourselves."

I am still calling.

Prayer

"Can cavities grow like a cancer?"

"Who told you about cancer?", she asked, her voice brusquer than she had wanted.

"The teacher played us a song, by Simon and Garfunkel. It said silence grows like a cancer."

"Did you already know what that meant?", she asked, her voice softening slightly.

"Marty told me. His uncle died from cancer. It's a sickness that lives in your body, and when it gets grown, you die."

"Come here", she said, holding him tightly, letting herself cry.

A few months later, they sat on the couch, holding hands.

"But why did Daddy have to go?", he asked.

"Because sometimes fights can grow like a cancer".

"Does that mean your love died?" he asked.

"Yes." she said.

"Then how do I know that one day, your love for me won't die too?", he asked, trying not to cry.

"I promise it won't", she whispered, hugging him tightly, praying she wasn't speaking a lie.