tremors

The leftover coffee trembles and trembles
Up and down the white china and makes
Brown, ugly runs on the cup's insides.

What is there to say, except that we are
Permanently broken
A rupture in time and luck and
A series of small missteps
Has made what cannot be unmade.
And I tremble and tremble.
With the abandoned coffee, knowing
A small piece of my brain has
Dimmed its lights.

Recite to me, all of our carefully gathered lines
And inside jokes,
One more time.
If only to hear the new emptiness that fills them.
Your forearm muscles tense, tense, release
Like a rhythmic waltz
And I crave to stroke it away.
But I think that would be the wrong thing to do
So without quite knowing why, I keep my fingers in each other,
Letting them become as cold as the coffee
Whose grounds have already separated from the liquid
And seeped to the bottom of the cup.
As we tremble and tremble.

**

july

July re-immersed us in this languid heat,
Keeping still this
Smell of pheromones and something rotting.
Like salt and a base need
I was so afraid
You could smell it on me.

I gingerly pick up my
Brandied apricot tea
It's so fragrant and warm
And seems to prefer me and stays
I think the apricot covers the salty desires nicely.

This teashop is seeming more like a cliché each second
With Hemingways and overpriced ceramic and pastries
Which are dry and only okay
Come quickly, so that we may leave quickly,
Before we freeze in this cliché too.

I can already feel second guesses
Draping themselves over me and whispering
Maddening consolations in my ear.
Move quickly, I beg of you.
In the meantime, I will stave off
These subversive thoughts.

Hurry and take away
This subtle, melancholy tinged
Sunday afternoon.
I think of you the way a stern mistress does
Her second lover
Not quite perfection but
Enough charm to shut up
The screaming under my skin for now.

**

spinning fibers

Strands are spun
Tangled and sticky
I can't see past the
Grotesque and clingy fibers
That never quite leave
The fabric of my new black jeans

Men lurch themselves away
From the bar
Splashing beer on to the next
So it goes
The domino effect
Elsewhere people are repeating
Units of conversation
Spouting white strings
Of their doings for a living and
Where they are from

And so,
In the final hour of potentiality
We congregate and spin
Trying to avoid
Fragmenting too much of ourselves.

**

hunt

After a clinical exchange, I have realized that I am, yet again, playing by myself. We always enjoy the chase, so much so we forget sometimes how exhausting it feels once we're forced to stop. Now that the prey has disappeared, I feel like perhaps it was a phantom all along -- a spot of sunshine peeking through the branches rather than a quick motion of something alive. As I pluck my arrows from tree barks, my hunger makes another growl at me. I wish I can shoot my desires instead. The thing about desire is, we are free to pursue whatever we want, but we are not free to choose what we want. It's one more blunted arrow tip later, and I'm just tired, and wish I can stave off becoming famished for another day. I wish we weren't this needy. The pathetic beggary of humanity. I wish I can become unchained from it.

**

dusk

Come, my darling, I'm falling in love with you again.
Love's a thief, threatening to steal from us, this evening.
And envy's a nag, which hides, skulking and cloaked,
But take no notice of them, my love, for our dusk is infinite.

This late lavender light, it envelopes for days
And for centuries we will kiss
Our cheeks sharing that golden light that is so kind
On every lover's face fortunate to behold it.

Come, my love, I shall have scarcely undone my hair
Before the wind starts, to take it away.
But your hands shall find it first, turning it into wheat and gold.
Pay no attention, to the eager breeze, cold from wanting your touch.

Do not ache, when the violets and ambers end,
And the flowers close their buds under lengthening shadows.
The day is over, yet we shall still be lit, soft and attracting --
All the jealous Night's blaze.

**

spring

We have reached the end of our long silence
I can feel sounds roll around the eggs in the nest
Waiting to poke through a soft part of the shell and
Break the sheath with their beaks.

We have reached
The downest of the descension
Of this particular curve.
I can't tell you how I know
Maybe it's the unbearable white air
That betrays a change coming.

Or maybe
I'm tired of this
Giant hole blown through me.

**

with any luck

With any luck I will by this time tomorrow,
In a new sage green lace dress,
Survive this sticky sensation
A while longer.
I know I have been liberal
With new found excess caution.
But it will not last long.

Sometimes you seem to me
The same as the city we live in
And I can't tell
Is from isn't or couldn't.
Maybe the right move is to feed us
One more canned line about
The same frequented bars and the same problems that
Plague our same friends, while -
The third cup of coffee catches
In the throat,
No longer smooth but scratches
An itch down the lining of my insides.

Maybe if I recite the line
One more time.
I would outrun
This stirring that plagues me.

**