Mourning

At the moment his knife touched your neck, I lay on the ground, silently bleating. The woman next to me smelled of sweat and cinnamon; I could feel her arms pressing into my back as we bowed. I was on my knees at the moment his knife approached your chest. As he drew the blade between your bones, his fingers tripped on your blood speckled fur, a clump of white and red.

"May His Glorious Mercy Be Praised".

Her wet elbow brushes my breasts as we stand, and the string slowly fades to white from red. Its color makes me think of the white of your eyes when you grow afraid - grew afraid, that is.

"Forever and ever. Amen."

I am silently bleating.

Why I Don't Like Cocktail Parties

"She's very pretty - in an Every Woman Has Curves type of way".

She sipped from her glass; you could see the alcohol glistening on her lips for a moment before evaporating, and you thought about photosynthesis, and how plants are constantly transforming chemical into other chemicals and all our cells are always changing.
Her dress was the color of grape leaves, and her arms looked vaguely like vines.
You wanted to say that this made her seem ripe, but really, it made her look menacing.
She kept sipping, waiting for you to make some witty remark.

"I write poetry", you said.

She laughed.

"Recite".

Her eyes gleamed as she tilted her head.

"Lady of wine,
why do you not let me pluck of your vine?
I asked for a sip, would you give me a drip,
of that juice so divine?"

"Well, that wasn't Shakespeare."

Her head has gone down again. She purses her lips, then comes close and whispers, "I want a man who can be cruel."
"Do you think that poets can be cruel?"
"I don't know. It depends on their words."

You laugh.

Numbness

She listened to the music, then numbed herself with some chocolate, before she could cry - or write.

To write requires some sort of emotion, but those were too much too handle now. Chocolate, on the other hand, was easy - it was soft in her hands, easy to chew - and - what exactly?

She watched her figure grow larger, felt the little puffinness in her arms and beneath the circles of tiredness that lined her eyes, but the thought of exploring herself was worse than all the bad reflections, so she continued to degrade with decadance.

But what use was the decadance if she could not write a poem about the soft brown, the sticky sweetness that stuck to her fingers?

As useful as a lollipop, she said, and felt proud of herself for making up the term, even though she had no one to share it with - just a bit of sadness and some coffee.

Mishle 16 - Draft 3

"It is from God that words come", she said, and he called them gifts of the tongue. His hands were turning the knobs of her breasts, his lips licking the little bumps below her nipples, which had always been too orange for her taste - so she made him kiss her in the dark.

And sometimes she thought that she got it, because what were humans if not little creatures tossing around in the night, feeling around for the God's presence like she felt for his flesh, trying to distinguish meaning from nonsense like her fingers diffrenciating between skin and sheets.

He annointed her over his bed, with the sweat of his forehead. She licked the insides of his thighs, and kissed the covenant that lay between them, sealed in a white mark upon her hair.

"But emotions come from man", she said, and she thought, "And sometimes from woman".

But by then, he was too busy to hear her,  his thighs wrapped around her thighs, his chest hairs brushing up against her breasts, and amid the breaths of prayers, she could feel her hair unwinding, with no words to capture the slight shattering - only a kiss that tasted of wine and cinammon.

Mishle 16 - 2nd Draft

"It is from God that words come", she said, and he called them gifts of the tongue. His hands were turning the knobs of her breasts, his lips licking the little bumps below her nipples, which had always been too orange for her taste - so she made him kiss her in the dark.

And sometimes she thought that she got it, because what were humans if not little creatures tossing around in the night, feeling around for the God's presence like she felt for his flesh, trying to distinguish meaning from nonsense like her fingers diffrenciating between skin and sheets.

He annointed her over his bed, with the sweat of his forehead. She licked the insides of his thighs, and kissed the covenant that lay between them, sealed in a white mark upon her hair.

"But emotions come from man", she said, and she thought, "And sometimes from woman".

But by then, he was too busy to hear her,  his thighs wrapped around her thighs, his chest hairs brushing up against her breasts, and amid the breaths of prayers, she could feel her hair unwinding, their covenant falling apart, with no words to capture the slight shatterings - only a kiss that tasted of wine and cinammon.

Mishle 16

"It is from God that words come", she said, and he called them gifts of the tongue. His hands were turning the knobs of her breasts, his lips licking the little bumps below her nipples, which had always been too orange for her taste - so she made him kiss her in the dark.

And sometimes she thought that she got it, because what were humans if not little creatures tossing around in the night, feeling around for the God's presence like she felt for his flesh, trying to distinguish meaning from nonsense like her fingers diffrenciating between skin and sheets.

He annointed her over his bed, with the sweat of his forehead. She licked the insides of his thighs, and kissed the covenant that lay between them, sealed in a white mark upon her hair.

"But emotions come from man", she said, and she thought, "And sometimes from woman".

But by then, he was too busy to hear her,  his thighs wrapped around her thighs, his chest hairs brushing up against her breasts, and amid the breaths of prayers, she could feel her hair unwinding, their covenant falling apart, with no words to capture the slight shatterings, no broom to sweep up the shards of glass - only a kiss that tasted of wine and cinammon, a slight itch on her left nipple, and a bit of white that would come out in the shower.

Fucking

""Don't push it", she said, as if I could do anything but, with you running around in my head. Kisses became evidence that you meant to leave me, and I would have preferred slaps, to the uncertainty of nights between your thighs, if I weren't so addicted to your fucking body."

She paused."That is the worst fucking writing I've ever seen - and I've read Daniel Steele".
"Daniel who?"
"Steele. She writes harlequin romance novels."
"Ok."
"You know the type that I'd like to read, if I weren't so busy trying to harlequinize my reality."
"Is that a word?"
"Shakespeare created neologisms - why can't I?"

Their conversation dangled (yes, like the Simon and Garfunkel song), as they sat on the couch, his laptop lying between them - and as she read her novel, he reread his words, and found them lacking; her kisses no longer seemed real, and he began to doubt that she loved him.

What kind of a girlfriend doesn't like your writing, anyway? Not one he needed - but he was so addicted to fucking her body.