Not Kissing You

It has been a number days since we were sitting in Parc la Fountaine, since I read you that story, since you offered me a lychee fruit and since you said “I think that went very well, like your French the other day”. When you smiled after that, we were standing a few feet from each other and I immediately regretted not kissing you while we were sitting on the grass beside each other. I was not afraid. Please don’t think that. I had had breath that was marred by too much coffee and spoiled by afternoon beer and although there was more than one perfect moment to do so, I did not want our first kiss to leave the memory of that taste that was in my mouth… now...well, now, I continue to think about the sun that snuck from behind the clouds to punctuate the pause in that perfect moment, the claw marks left by your cat on your inner thigh, the gentle way your bangs blew into your face and the feeling of wanting to hold you close.

Rope ladders and nostalgia

Rope ladders and nostalgia

>> the stoop was particularly scented that evening. a pungent longing that brought me only back to a memory of bus careening through the foothills of the himalayas. i took 5 sleeping pills that night and never felt such nostalgia for home. and in that moment, i couldnt decipher which home my body was referring to.  but that very nostalgia suffocated all logic or reason. the stoop is particularly drenched in nostalgia. a nostalgia for moments that have never occured. moments that i transpired from imagined quarry's. and knowing.

>>

>> bedouins flee like flawless memory into brazen sahara nights. a bizarre tonality left pieces scattered across the lanolium counter top. reminiscent of days that kissed ear drums with persistent rain. like the lapse of his lip across crisp white sheets. and luke warm dances that sneak across bar stools.

>>

>> i am no longer the castle that i, ever so intentionally, built over time. a tall wall and a moat. 15 alligators, all of whom i have named with sound, completely independent of any association of meaning:

>>

>> 1. oo

>> 2. ahhh

>> 3. mmmmmm

>> 4. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>>

>> and so on and so forth...

>>

>> 10 thousand locks and even more guards, all of which have a strange resemblance to the face that stares at me from the victorian mirror. my castle no longer.

>>

>> PART II

>>

>> penelope laps the milk from his forefinger with mercury sedated lash gaze. first only a taste, then slowly... ever slowly and then with rapid intent, she coughs a parade of pink petals. a feast bestowed on a warm park bench which belies the distinct mirage of a parisian midnight.

>>

>> the glass was neither half full nor half empty. it just was.

>>

>> busy cars knock from forks shadowed in the road. one green, one red, and one white. streaking from the midriff region and outward. a subtle tip to wrong and swerve to the right. arriving, in the same middle median caressed with petite purple flowers.

>>

>> a cottonwood tree leans to the right from the angle of a small girl sheltered under the skylight. a lopsided pig tail crushed against the felt of the old persian rug. mother stares at dust collecting on the waxy figurines under the hand dug niche that was once her sanctity. i felt nothing more vacant than the gaze of her dilated pupils scanning the room for a sign of life. and in those moments i wanted nothing more than the half lid of the roof to spill shadows from the cottonwood tree... (always leaning to the right)... and spinning an ever so fragile cotton rope ladder... to lift me, ribcage first and ankles last, to my fortress buckled in orions belt.

>>

>> penelope laps the milk from his eyes, first a tap-tap-tap... trickle... then a flood. blood rushing from the toe to the penial gland and then to the heart, simolatneously and in synch with the miles davis that eminates from the crushed velvet loveseat. with a single decimal, a slight twist of the cheekbone... his tongue unravels into the same rope ladder. harnessing her first from the ribcage, then the ankle and finally tucking her away into the fortress that is the impetus of her nostalgia for home.