soft gray sunset
fluttering limbs like trunks in the breeze
banana leafs shuffle,
a yellow-green wave
dyed with the thought of rain
the blue of cloud and steel holding back
the bowl of blackberries and milk, a teaspoon of sugar
crosshatched where the birch-hairs twine
in overlapping lines scrawled above
the white bodies turn brown
stretched from molten crucible
into blown gestures
faint suggestions to the wind
the upside-down birdcages
unfurl near the brim
their arms splitting and
growing barbs like battle maces
when the leaves carve away
the paper bark shivers,
leafs, electric on the stem
the shadow from the trunk bleeds
and stains the b
I'd never breathed another's air
or touched someone with savoir-faire
you my only whom I chose
in all full-flawed man glory, I suppose
you know the story.
How do I know?
But I met the frothy mirror at my cup's depths,
where the jostling cold gnawed
and hollowed my warmth -
and a boy laid down his body
-I bend myself around bodies
And I forget that I forget their name
so I may laze in pools of languid dreams,
close my eyes and remember when it was
your breath beneath my lips
your fluttered hands drifting to dip
and I am lying to myself I know
I scream inside against the glowing craft
there was warmth in your presenc
The Ridgeley Thief (Opening) by Prosaic-Scriptor, literature
Literature
The Ridgeley Thief (Opening)
It was the fourth stapler that she had stolen that week. Not that she had only stolen staplers--there'd been the Post-It notes, the hole-punchers, the paperclips, and coffee creamers as well. The staplers simply weighed more than the other stolen goodsno pun intended. Having a freshly thieved stapler in your purse was as comforting as the lunches Rebecca's mother had once packed her.
Rebecca patted the lump in her bag slowly and let a smile light her face. Maybe her boss would finally realize she'd been stealing for years or maybe he wouldn't realize until after he fired her. Someone would figure it out soon, and Rebecca couldn'
Simply, I love you.
My palms chafe your shuddering soul at night;
In my dreams I whisper your being.
I ride the stripped steel string of your echoed chord,
cradled in song, I chase the puckered silhouettes of fading shouts,
past struggles my fingertips worry into nubs.
(I love you)
Sometimes my jaw screams from clenching,
and my teeth buckle under the grinding torture
your memory springs -
slaking my thirst of you would drip you barren,
till your essence would curdle and evaporate to memorandums.
But I love you.
Simply.
There is no agony like the crucifixion of your loss.
No death like the fatality of your displeasure. .
Tasting the end on the smiles I give,
I am wading in wrinkles of us that we've lived:
fumbling all our syllables,
eloquence eluding tongues.
I wonder if we're loving
or just living as I leave.
Ducking our eyes as we rebuild old walls,
a shushing graze startles your heartbeat to fall.
Crumbling our filigree,
the goss'mer-linked nodes.
When surviving feels like dying
I'm ashamed we do no more.
Dreaming of the past we flew from while we wished the sun to still;
the time's not right to leave you but we're dying like we will
when that engine revs and truth collides
with tears released from iron ties -
in the puddles between your silence,
the blank leaps and blinks,
I thieve truth.
the drop of an eyelash, a barren glance,
both etched in red to a pillager.
ravenous, I ransack waving eyes, peeped mouth,
the soaring crescendo of chest-crested inhale,
hunting truth I've yet to find.
the clock begins another tick,
I smile to the amber eyes,
you ask me why the wheeze of time again
has drawn my gnarled frown.
but lying amplifies the sigh,
so my mouth tumbles open - understand, or try:
where tree limbs give to space,
when you linger on a breath,
I keep the magic of your self
and ration it out to analyze, to sell
myself on the tr
remember that I do not know you.
though my eyes roll back into invisible memory
and blur your shape into ragged warmth
(I ache to hold)
you have vanished.
Any fluttering slips of lips or lashes
are but jigsaw keys,
half-torn and long since swallowed by time's gaping throat.
this obsession is overpowered
by a corrosive desperation:
it lingers, a lactic acid in my veined emotions.
My adoration clings to you like a saccharine smoke,
twining through the venerated beauty
of your smile.
(how pathetic--)
-- yet content.
shamed as I am, stripped of pride's protection, I
remember that I do not know you;
that though you are real
Crumpled and cornered,
its drawstrings splay out in surrender:
facing abject misery with hollow arms.
Crossed fingers delve the mess,
plying the folds and stumbling through
tangled shreds of pockmarked fabric;
burrowed into the nubby depths,
they knead furrowed bumps and knots,
teased by dryers past.
The stench of softener and tears clings to
the unraveled sleeves, barren maws
that sag flaccidly at the mouth.
It soothes the devouring ache to feel;
as the dead cloth envelops my fingertips,
numb satisfaction cloaks the anger.
Imagining your frame billowing out, floating
through the garment, it explodes into life.
I drape my b
The long while since hope's bullet
Slogged through my tissues
And down veins' gullets,
Left me immune
To the pervasive hardening
Of repeated pardoning.
Flickering eyes,
Reluctance or lies,
All rocketing signs that led
You from my side.
The harsh voice sliced through the morning air, silencing the bird song and trickling burble of water: "I won't do it."
"Zuko," Iroh admonished, "I can't keep stalling the nobles." The bags beneath his usually warm amber eyes sagged with weariness when he bowed his head. "It's no use; they need an answer," he murmured. Hesitantly, he approached the new Fire Lord, his weathered hand hovering just above Zuko's coiffed topknot. Iroh sighed, and patted his nephew's shoulder. It would change nothing to argue with him.
Zuko's eyes slammed shut with the touch of his uncle's hand on his shoulder, and the words that followed. "This is a hard decisio