Define me when you take swigs
the number of your hair.
The unmoving frames
of your Sunday musings
whisper in caps lock;
they want to be forgotten-
they told me,
like I could save you from myself
somehow.
I’ve always wondered
what it would be like
to play the piano
with my feet on an acoustic run;
the shadow that isn’t friends
with the light like a body part
I’ve always known,
always had,
but never quite seen.
I sugarcoat myself
hanging by mere fiction,
a pendulum and a metronome
coming home.
What are we but allusions
to the people behind us,
ambivalence to the rivers
that never meet the ocean.
It’s frightening how
a pile of exiled leaves
and a grief-stricken moonset
capture
the secrets of fireflies.
A stranger to gravity, sometimes
trees know how to be brave,
standing tall
where the stars collide.
When the father found his daughter
Lying with tears in her eyes,
He scorned and said, “Now do get up,
And never again let me see you cry.”
The sister said, “Each time we see you weeping
We know it’s just your own fault,”
And they told her all her wounds would heal
If they mixed the blood with a bit of salt.
All the words cut through the girl,
And she begged to know what she’d done wrong
But the mother only stared at her
As though miserable silence would make her strong.
Then she said with icy resolve,
"Just you wait and see.
You’ll thank me when you’ve grown callous and cold,
When you’re b
He Comes with the Rain by betwixtthepages, literature
Literature
He Comes with the Rain
Rain slides down Yesteryear Antiques' cheap stained-glass windows in lazy swirls and spirals. Tracking a drop with narrowed green eyes, Shay wrinkles her nose and steps around a haphazard stack of Life magazines. A sheaf of her thick auburn hair falls across the right half of her face. Pulling a hair tie from her wrist, she scoops the locks into a messy bun. The lights flicker, thunder rumbling. Shay glances again at the rain's path on the windows. Turning to a set of dresser drawers, she rifles through pens, paper clips, and crayola markers. A wad of teal tissue paper crinkles under her fingers and Shay pulls it from the drawer, unwrapping i
Sometimes I don't know what to say,
and then I look at you,
I look into those blooming sunflower eyes
and I know
that I don't have to say a thing,
but... I want to,
I want to say everything
and I wonder
if my words move you the way
you move me.
Can you feel the beating of my heart
through your fingertip
as it glides down the touchscreen,
as it slides over my words,
does your spine pick up radiating waves,
does your mind comprehend
does your heart resound
like a thunderstorm
as every letter drips down
my arm
and spills upon the page
in digital smudges
with your name hidden
in the white gap between each word?
I've never quite figured out
just