Poison Apple
Poison Apple
The church is cold as I perch on my pew.
The heater is broken again, third time
this winter. The preacher has begun his
sermon, but all I hear is the silence of your
absence.
My phone rings. It should turn it off,
especially since it’s playing our song.
I know it’s you. I shouldn’t answer.
I stand and duck out to the lobby.
I know judgmental looks are following me.
Your hesitant hello send heat coursing
through my frozen veins, awakening
my stifled senses. Brother Phillip’s
voice echoes over the loud speaker,
but his words are as distant as God.
All I hear is your heavy breathing.
More Posts from Laceandpaper and Others
Sunset Over Atlantic
The tan line on my ring finger has faded,
just another reminder of the time we’ve lost
since that day at the beach when my ring
washed away with the tide. We couldn’t afford
to replace it. Maybe I should have taken that as
a sign.
Gas Prices Skyrocket
He bluffed, “It’s the cheapest you’ll find a vintage sports car.”
She huffed, “It looks rather new for a vintage sports car.”
Love for the ages: soft, steady, slow, and sweet, or a
flame: fast, beautiful, and deadly, like a vintage sports car.
Pulling off her shirt she felt revealed, reviled, repulsive,
telling herself it’s not trashy if you do it in a vintage sports car.
Cherry red, blood red, red wood. Scattered under moonlight.
On the accident report they called it a vintage sports car.
Heaven forbid honesty! Hide your feelings, your secrets,
undercover. Like in the driveway, a vintage sports car.
Status symbols: a Rolex watch, a million bucks, a
yacht in the bay. Trade your wife for a vintage sports car.
The past thrown away, left to rot and not be remembered.
Left to decompose in a junkyard next to a vintage sports car.
Lost, lonely, loveless? Ditch the club, forget online dating.
One thing that can never leave you: A vintage sports car.
To escape your problems you must run far away.
My suggestion? Zero to sixty in a vintage sports car.
A gold-digging robbery! Get away with his money, his heart,
a license plate reading RAY-RAY on a vintage sports car.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Before our first date you bought me white lilies. I guessed you didn’t know the symbolism. But as the two of us become one for the who-knows-what time – you, deep inside me and I, clenched tight around you – I wonder if you did. Sometimes I feel as if we have become dead together. Your burning skin pressed against me, answering my need, no longer smells like cinnamon, only sweat. As your lips caress my collarbone, my breast, my navel you no longer taste strawberry, only salt. This four-story apartment building, box-shaped and bland, no longer is a stepping stone to a better life, but just another reminder of how our plans fell through. I remember the lilies as your hands squeeze my aching flesh, too warm for a corpse. The sun rises and the birds chirp and I convince myself that we are not yet dead. Even if that sun has long faded our yellow curtains. Even if we hardly speak. Even if you no longer call me liebe, though we still make love. Even if your touch is the only thing I’m still living for.
Soulmates
I worry that I do not live up to your past, but you tell me the practice is as much fun as the goal. This is not the awkward introduction, but the elusive intimacy that comes with connection. You guide me as a ship captain who loves his boat enough to go down with it. Feel you, feel me, feel we as if no me could exist without you. Lead me, love me. Touch like lightning electrifies my skin. In this moment freeze. Breathe. Release. You make me weak. I wish to hold on and never be free.
Lone Tree - Rachel Schneider
Medium:
Calligraphy pens on paper
Liar
You forced a laugh and told me
You were heartless
As your head fell into your hands,
Hiding a pained smile.
I’m glad you’re a liar.
Spring
Cut through the pallid skin of the fresh corpse of winter. Bleed beginnings.
The close of winter is a silent night, still darkness giving in to a vibrant day.
Dying frost. Awakening Blooms. Welcome to a new world.
Sweet, the scent of birdsong and blue.
In the movies, this is where the newborn enters the scene.
The dawn light breaks on pale pink, the bright call
of miles to go before I sleep.
I swear it’s too hot for this time of year.
Venus, why bring love in Spring if it dies in winter?
Dying minus the end equals resurrection.
Worst
You ask why I always
Assume the worst
And I tell you that
If I assume the worst
I can’t be disappointed.
But the truth is, I always
Assume the worst
Because all I want
Is for you to tell me
Just how wrong I am.
The Tortoise Loves the Hare
Friend, Don’t tell me how to run my race.
Just because you can’t reach
the finish line doesn’t mean
I have to stall in second place,
slinking in your shadow
since you “know what’s best
for me.”
I stand on my own feet,
I run to who I choose.
I will dance, I will fly, even
if I pass you by. Keep up
or I’ll leave you in the dust.
