Track 5

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.

Glass Bottle Wrapped in Cloth - Rachel Schneider

Medium:

Graphite on Bristol Paper

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.

To Tokyo, With Love

Long lost lover living out

of sight, out of mind. I find myself

forgetting how it was to lay

eyes upon you, to lay beside

the water, to feel the soft caress

of your whispered words on my

waiting ear. Lover half a world away,

I no longer remember the sharp

glint of your smile, the sensuous

depth of your laughter. All I remember

Is your impossible perfection. Absence

makes the heart grow ill, poisons

memories to be larger than

love. Stay away lover, I fear

you’ll rob me of my love for your

image. I have broken a commandment;

I idolize your memory above you.

In the Snow - prismacolor pencil and whiteout on paper

Temptation (Part One of To Save A Wretch Like Me)

The first part of the collection, To Save A Wretch Like Me, tells the story of the two lovers meeting and getting to know each other. It is during this section that the narrator, the girl, begins to question what she's been raised to believe, and pulls away from the familiar to join the boy on a path towards uncertain self-discovery.

Sweetie

Love, your friend:

Sweetie, the roses are all dying now,

They’ve withered and faded beyond repair.

And though you water them I can see how

They still have gone, despite your watchful stare.

Sweetie, the roses have all bowed their heads,

A sign of goodbye in this cold, dark room.

The stems have gone black and their bodies shed

Their petals and leaves far into the gloom.

Sweetie, sometimes I think you are a rose

He’s drying you up petal by petal.

I watch you lie down and as your eyes close,

I see your heart is now withered, brittle.

Sweetie, you know deep inside this is wrong.

Inside your heart is not where he belongs.

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.

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.

Crime of Passion

I saw you, anonymous among the masses, a

passerby spending some time. Come closer,

lead me into artificial intimacy. Body on body,

eat me, crave me. A strange, succulent sweet.

Are we still strangers? I feel I know you so well.

Do you even know my name? Does it matter?

Give me more and who we are won’t matter.

Under these pulsing lights we could be anyone.

I am yours, sweet stranger, just for this song.

Let the beat hide our fears, inhibitions, and

those who are holding us back. The air is hot,

you stick to me. Sweaty sheets and mussed up makeup.