She is young.
She is bronzed,
with pale skin,
backlit by gold;
with dark hair,
arranged in curls;
with bright eyes,
awash in sunlight.
She has small hands,
with smaller fingers.
She is thin.
She yawns,
and she has a pink mouth,
with white milk teeth.
She smiles.
I reach out to touch her,
and she -
it -
the whole world -
the false reality, it collapses.
I realize -
she is impossible.
Blond.
Blond is new.
Close is new.
Tangible -
tangible is definitely new.
The smiles are new
(as are the touches,
the winks,
the fidgeting,
the smiles,
the laughing,
the arguing).
The imperfection is new.
Reality -
reality is new
(and feels like a ton of bricks).
Subtle - you’re subtle.
That’s new.
The casual nature,
the long absences,
the uncertainty -
all new.
And, yet, I keep coming back to -
blond.
The blond.
That’s new.
It registers first.
It’s new.
You’re blond.
“So sweet,
so splendid,”
says I,
my face turned up,
my eyes locked on the tips of trees.
“‘Tis nothing,
‘tis nonsense,”
says he,
his face turned down,
his eyes locked on reality.
“Very dull,
very dry,”
says she,
her face turned away,
her eyes locked on the middle space.
“So sweet,
so splendid,”
says you,
your face turned up,
your eyes locked on the tips of trees.
Your skin is soft grass,
carved stone,
cool ice under my hands.
Your hair is gentle wind,
rustled leaves,
flowing water in my fingers.
Your mind is brilliant sunlight,
thriving nests,
singing birds in my grasp.
Your sigh is a bee’s buzz,
a stream’s splash,
a cloud passing through my head.
You are nature alive,
present, tangible,
here to be beheld by my mortal person.
“a play about tacos in which there are no lines and rehearsals include eating tacos”
TYLER sits at a park bench, Taco Bell bag at his side. His taco meat is soaking through the shell, but no matter. It is a taco, and this is enough.
HANK comes up next to him, his own Taco Bell bag clutched tightly in his right hand. He looks at the space on the bench beside TYLER expectantly. TYLER shifts his Taco Bell bag to rest in the grass at his feet. HANK sits and pries open his bag.
It seems as though TYLER wants to say something. He opts not to, instead taking another bite of his taco. HANK pulls his own taco out of his greasy bag and does the same. The two sit in relative silence, save for the odd crunch of a particularly hard bit of shell.
HANK gestures to his taco as though trying to say something to TYLER. TYLER just nods understandingly. HANK feels understood. This is a friendship for the ages.
end
Your snowflake lips
and fingertips
are cold as winter air.
Your lightest touch,
the coldest rush
of whispered words so rare.
Your snowy eyes
are fireflies
whose light we get to share.
The frost in us
remains sightless
and chooses not to care.
This winter, please
just let me freeze
and save our love affair.
So I may last
while seasons pass,
while you go wait somewhere.
Our love is one
that can’t be done
under the warm sun’s glare.
And you and I
with foggy sighs,
well, we make quite a pair.
Through frozen rain
you still remain
lingering far out there.
All winter we’ll
live life ideal.
Wait for me, and take care.
My snowflake dove,
my winter love,
summer just can’t compare.
So, here I’ll sit,
and get frost bit,
and wait for you, I swear.
I was given the challenge of writing a poem in seven minutes without editing it at all. I accepted the challenge. Here is the product.
Folded
pressed
but, god,
you’re a mess.
The war did something
that you can’t fix
and I can’t miss
and that’s all I feel.
All I feel when I kiss you
is the trembling
hesitation
fixation
sensation
of you being somewhere else
of guns blazing
and eyes glazing
and stargazing
and death so sweet
and close by.
Your heart may sing,
but your eyes disappear.
Your colors are flat.
You’ve got all the life just sucked out of you.
The greys are deep
The greens don’t keep
and the blues in a heap
in the corner
where the laundry basket
was before you left.
Your eyes were blue when they left
like the laundry in the corner.
They aren’t there anymore.
Your daughter misses you.
She asks where you are
and I send her to you
and you stare.
You stare at your own daughter
and you don’t see her.
You stare at the clock on the wall
and what catches your fall
and the end of it all.
The war robbed us of money
and jobs
and my rings,
but I could ignore all that
if I still had you.
You, with your combed hair
and foreign affair
and vacant stare,
are still in Germany.
Your tie has green dots.
Pale green on dark green.
Everything is olive
and forest
and emerald
except for you.
You are white
and ivory
and snow.
You have blood on your hands
and on your cheeks
and in your damned devil eyes.
I can’t stand this.
I can’t live like this.
You’re not here
You can’t hear
You’re gone.
You’re gone,
and I’m not a gun.
I’m not a soldier.
I’m not a bomb,
not the kind you want.
I’m love,
the opposite of war.
But you want the love of war.
Opposites attract
and your sorrow attracts my joy
and sucks it so we’re the same.
We don’t have identities.
Our identity is war
and now you have the war you always wanted.
The war is in our minds
and in our hearts
and in our very beings,
because it doesn’t stay where it was.
The treaty isn’t signed
and everyone goes home happy.
The treaty is signed
and everyone carries a chunk of war home
and that’s all we are now.
We are folded,
and we are pressed,
and we are goddamned mess.
Ever since she had moved in, the door to her bedroom had creaked, and tonight was no exception. She blinked awake to the sound of the door being pushed open very, very slowly. Her heart beat quickly in alarm at first, but as the intrude gently pushed the door shut again, and began gingerly walking to her large, lonely bed in the absolute darkness, she stopped worrying - the footfalls were beyond familiar. Her heart beat even faster, though, now that she recognized who was there.
A hand, wide and rough to the touch, pulled the blanket from around her shoulders down to her waist. The same hand returned to the naps of her skin, barely touching her skin, trailing warm fingers down her bare back.
“I had to see you.” That deep, familiar murmured near her ear. The weight on the bed shifted and he climbed in beside her. She turned around in place until she was on her back and his arm was trapped beneath her neck.
“I didn’t know you kept your key.” She whispered. He was coming into view, his face close to hers as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and being awake.
“I couldn’t give it up.” He confessed. His eyes stared into hers, steadfastly not blinking, like a blink would bring with it the sudden disappearance of the person before them. “I couldn’t give you up.”
There was no proper spoken response to that, so she settled for the physical, pulling their bodies together, realizing vaguely that neither of them had shirts. She pressed her face to neck, his shoulder, forcing him to hold her close, wrapping herself around him so he couldn’t leave. He kept his arms around her tight and kissed the top of her head, allowing his lips to linger there softly. It wasn’t long before she fell back asleep, being barely awake as she had been.
He relished in the feeling of her there, however temporary it was, and closed his eyes, seeing her face burnt into the inside of his eyelids. He hoped the image etched there would never leave him again, and she clung to him desperately in sleep. The waking world would bring with it any number of reasons for his return and their collapse, but for now, they only needed the one reason to stay together for all of eternity, and maybe a little bit longer.
She stepped up onto the edge and closed her mouth.
Her heart beat faster than it had in months.
Everything up until this moment seemed so pointless.
This had a point.
She swallowed and it caught in her throat.
She hiccupped.
The wind shoved at her lightly.
Her hands grew numb, cold, clammy, sweaty.
Nothing had brought her joy recently.
For months, she was alone.
Her mouth opened slightly.
She spread her arms like in the movies.
The breeze felt good against her skin.
Well, it felt as good as anything had in the past months.
She trembled and shut her mouth again.
Her eyes closed of their own free will.
The heart inside of her chest beat faster.
This was the most exciting thing she would ever do.
She took a hesitant step.
The ledge was frosty and forgiving.
She slipped off the edge and fell gracelessly.
In that last moment, she felt more than she ever had.
In the dipping hills of Ireland,
between every nick and knoll,
the wind still carries my old cries,
and the holder of my soul.
He lived in a small cottage,
built of sweet old straw and stone
and I first came upon him
back when we were still alone.
His hair was red like fire,
his eyes were blue like sky;
his skin was pale like cream,
and I’d wish that he was mine.
He’d whisper to me sweetly,
tell me “Ruari, it’s okay.
We will be together
until our final days.”
He built us our own cottage,
and we lived off of the land,
and Kian burnt our lasting love
into our wedding bands.
We had ourselves two children,
both daughters, small and fair.
They had his bright blue eyes,
his cream skin, his fire hair.
We lived together gently,
in the hills of Ireland.
We never strayed far from ourselves,
and we lived the life we planned.
That was long ago
before Kian went to war
and left us all behind,
just almost like before.
I say “almost” now
because it’s never quite the same;
he left a hole that can’t be filled,
a sadness with a name.
It’s been years since I’ve seen him,
and his sky-blue eyes.
I wait for him every day
while my heart slowly dies.
I’ll wait and wait forever
until my love comes home.
In our Irish cottage I’ll stay,
never shall I roam.
Here I’ll wait with our daughters,
until their father is here.
I shall not admit to them
the one thing we all fear.
I know my Kian is long gone,
I know that I’m alone,
but I know he’s never far from me
and our little Irish home.
And we lived in a small cottage
built of sweet old straw and stone
and when I last came upon him
I promised he was not alone.
In the dipping hills of Ireland,
between every nick and knoll,
the wind still carries my old cries,
and the holder of my soul.
The Doctor stood, puzzled. He was often puzzled, but this was a more… puzzling puzzled than he had experience with. His surroundings were hazy, but they soon began to come into focus, almost as though someone were slowly slipping a pair of glasses in front of his eyes.
I feel stable when I know
that you may be with everyone else
but you always come back to me.
Your place at night is beside me,
safe in bed,
where nobody will find us.
Your place is in my heart.
It is frightening when you leave;
I am terrified.
I worry that you will
find a better place to be.
But you have not found it yet.
I hope you never will
because not only would I lose my stability
but I would also lose you.
I am terrified.
You have become an abstract.
Every word from you is a fairy tale.
Every gesture is a song.
Every smile is the wind.
When I see you,
you are barely real to me.
It’s a shock when I remember.
It is only when I feel the pain
of being apart from you
that I remember you are real.
You are not a fairy tale,
you are a creased novel.
You are not a song,
you are a haunting hymn.
You are not the wind,
you are a sweet caress.
You are not an abstract,
you are a reality.
I will never remember that
until I feel the pain
which reality always brings.
It is as though there is a tear
right along my side
where you were meant to belong.
The only thing that will ever
drag me back into the fairy tale
that is you, and all you are,
is the knowledge that
if I have this tear,
so do you.
You feel the pain,
and you tolerate the reality,
but you know just as well as I
that this cannot go on.
And so we shall stitch ourselves together
and disappear into an abstract reality
where the books are fairy tales
and the songs are hymns
and the wind caresses you
because that is where we belong.
Hello, reader. My name is N.L. Mello, and it's a pleasure to have you today. I write all the time - it's both a blessing and a curse - and I have to have some place to put it all. That's the purpose of this blog; so that there's a place where all my raw, barely-edited, original work can go to be free.
