A scratch Hiss Burst of flame   Thorns twist in my ribs, The wounds like an old friend As I lower the match to the blackened wick   Fire jumps to the stiff braid Blazing in tandem Until I pull back   I blow, Extinguishing the match, Surrendering to isolation   The candlelight burns on Crackles and sways Wax weeping, eroding   Shadows flicker  across my skin Over the empty room   Your ghost whispers in echoes, Ricocheting...

Parked under a buzzing, stroked out streetlamp, I looked down the street.  People moved slowly in the night, shadows slinking among shadows.  The occasional cars’ headlights made them scuttle like roaches.   Home.   My limbs were heavy, the darkness inside me begging to take over.  Leaning back in my seat, I pushed the prescription bottle deep into my panties until I felt its hard round shape between my pussy lips.  Years...

I’d spent the entire funeral avoiding her and now her incestual hands were around my mother. Standing with a plate of baked-from-scratch cinnamon rolls, Kara rubbed my mom’s back as she cried.  The picture of poise, her blonde hair hung in a loose waves from her shoulders.  A boat necked black dress hugged her curves, the skirt stopped just above her knees.  Her make up was a sheen of perfection. Mom was a mess.  Couldn’t...

The red light glared at me.  I glared back.   A faded blue sedan squeaked into the gas station on the corner, engine rattling as it parked.  It shut off, the intersection quiet again.  A man stepped out, limp-swaggered inside.  The door’s bell chime was clear across the empty streets. Still the traffic light was red.  Redder, if possible.  More insistent.   No cameras perched on top, no one around to care.  What’s it matt...

Few things live In this garden of  Thirsting flowers   Petals scattered  Like headstones Among cracked, Disintegrated  Stems Shattered skeletons Of tree branches  Lying on powdered dirt   Dogs may tear every limb Time may desecrate it all   But warmth beats  Below the surface Stretches in the fingers of roots Crackles into the dried veins Of the forgotten  And with every bit murdered Every part abandoned   It still belong...

The photographers’ shadows stretched toward her across the dying front lawn like fingers in the fading hours of daylight.  All cameras pointed at their house.   Leah let the blinds go with a metallic clack.  Turning away, she raked her fingers through her hair and met her husband’s blue eyes.  Grimaced.  “I keep waiting for them to go away.” “Give it time.”  Chris's thin lips turned up in a smile.  His calloused hands str...

Roxanne touched her lips as she stared into the bedroom mirror.  It was as if the ghost of his kiss lingered through the nights between their dates.  Each time he held back.  Each time she pressed him harder.  Talked dirtier.   How long am I supposed to be cool about this before I jump his bones? She looked into the mirror at her body.  Arms covered in tattoos with two big pieces on her thighs.  Her hip bones stood out ju...

The girl was gone. Rolling the plastic die in the crook of his hand, Jesse’s gaze rested on the cocoa skinned beauty tending bar in Roxanne’s absence. Her deltoids flexed as she shook the ice and liquid in the shaker. She uncapped it to pour the watermelon colored liquid in a dainty martini glass and glanced across the bar at him. Jesse focused on his book. A discussion of poetry and prose. Always the English teacher. It...

It was in the massive white walls, track lighting, and spotless, glittering objects of Williams Sonoma that Henri’s world stopped.    His eyes had caught on a crystal sconce perfect for the cozy, romantic eating area in the wine cellar of his family’s bed and breakfast.  He turned to survey the side of its rope-like motif when he heard two men murmuring to each other. They meandered up the little hallway between the bedro...

Two more months. She sank into the old leather couch.  Soothing piano notes floated from her little speaker onto the stale air’s unclaimed molecules, lifting the dim house’s oppression.  Turning, she brushed back the flimsy curtains to let the light in, only to notice goopy bodies of dried paint around the window.  Tiny holes in the walls glared like beady black eyes.  She looked down at the floor she’d installed while pr...

When you dam your words From my ear Do they surf upon dust motes Dead leaves and exhaust  Sunshine and humidity And eke through  cracks in windows and doors To present themselves to my skin Do I absorb them Like a dying woman  Does water Are they the reason I still walk Still drink Still breathe Even with  a spirit on mute Or do they rest upon My chest, Weighting each breath, For a death that beds  The rest of my days

Blind  Bound I survive in noise And knowledge That you live in the ether Beside me,  That I do not Suffer alone.    But her voice, Fragile as eggshells, Gifts devotion, Adoration, Through the fraying seams Holding our world in place.  Her scent  Peels back the twine  Clasping my skin And seals, Proliferating Like a thousand spores,  Covering my flesh with scales.    The air is thick With your unintelligible  Response And...

Tonight is the night.  It has to be.  Anticipation drew in her soul tight. Celeste stared through the statue’s eyes at the crumbling red brick below.  Spanish moss clumped at her cracked toes, early morning fog saturating what she could see of the air in her peripheral vision.  Molded in place, she had all her senses and none of her muscularity.   It’d been three hundred years.  Three hundred years since the night that wi...

Can’t tell you I love you Though your voice lives in my bonesYour words upon my breastsYour touch, forever lingeringThe days I drank of you,Rebuilt upon your breathLive now in reflections,Mosaics of memoryBuried in the abyss That used to be me.I drape my love over youLike armorBut vault the words,Protect me from themProtect me from youSo fold me up like paperAnd toss me into the windSpeak to me ofFlowers and photos and li...

There are times I feel adriftNot quite alive,Not groundedNot feeling much of anythingThen you reach outA textA callA touchAnd I exist again,In the curl of your smileAnd my answering grinMaybe we ground each other,In this swirling, blurring world,With a love so quiet So powerfulThat sometimes it Doesn’t need a voiceBut a touch A lookA kissMy heart is yoursDuring all life’s adventuresBut also in the stillness,The quiet,The...