“Wish me luck.”

“Why? Luck with what?”

“Just … in general. I could use some.”

You eyed me cautiously at this. I raised the almost empty pint glass to my lips. The bar was nearly empty. A couple sat very close together, their lips nearly touching as they whispered inebriated thoughts into each-other’s mouths. An old man stared into a newspaper, mumbling something to the bartender. It was nearing closing. We’d been sitting at this bar for hours.

“Okay”, you said with half smile “Good luck”.

I smiled at you and searched your eyes for something. They were glossed over, just like you’d expect them to be, after drinking all night.
“It’s probably time to go,” I said, finishing my drink.

“yeah, okay.”

Your eyes lingered on me a moment longer, and I wondered if it was the alcohol, slowing your reflexes or if perhaps you wanted to ask me something. Maybe you were just enjoying the rarity of having me near.

We both set cash on the bar and put on our coats, starting for the door.

Once outside, you pressed a cigarette to your lips and offered me one.
“No thanks.” I said, sticking my hands in the pockets of my coat.

“This was nice, I’m glad you called.”

You never asked me what had prompted me to call after all this time. You just said that maybe you’d see me tomorrow as you blew smoke towards the sky. You sounded more confident than hopeful in the statement.
We said goodbye and I walked off. I felt your eyes on my back until I turned a corner.

You never asked, so I never told. I never told you that my car was already loaded with the most important of my things and I was leaving when I woke up. I was leaving town, leaving far, might even say I was running.

I just hugged you goodbye, and left you with the thought that perhaps tomorrow we’d see each-other again.

I know that warm tea with honey and reading a book and going for walks and calling my mom.

but what about sitting alone at a bar, taking shots of whiskey with the bartender?

isn’t self love just doing what you know will serve your soul, regardless of popular opinion?

sometimes I need the wisdom found at the bottom of a shot glass

and to watch the slurring of a stranger’s words

don’t ask me why

because i don’t need to tell you.

Be a filter, not a sponge.
Listen but don’t take everything you hear to be the truth.
Instead, keep and believe only what you think will be useful to your own path.
Analyze your thoughts before you become them.

People are so afraid of intimacy and connections with anybody besides the person they’re romantically involved with. I wish we’d normalize better things, instead of  making  everyone believe that opening up to people should be a rare and dreadful thing. lately, I’ve had fantastic conversations with strangers or almost strangers, and I wish it were more common. I think having an open mind really helps, so that when somebody tells you something a bit crazy,  you don’t shoot down their believes, and instead listen.

My thoughts have been stale without the possibility that you’ll ring me one day and tell me that you’ve missed me.
I daydream of the way your words will slur on the phone because you’ve been drowning the memories of me in wine, just like I have.
Your fingers will gently hold the glass and you’ll swirl it and laugh into the receiver as you tell me you hadn’t realized you’d finished a whole bottle.
Your voice will be sad and I’ll rejoice in it, and reluctantly tell you that i’ve held my breath at the passing of every black Nissan Sentra since you left.
But this isn’t a romantic comedy or a book, where you’ll stand outside my window in the rain or find me at a party too intoxicated to drive home and you’ll rescue me from myself.

 

 

I remember how we danced.
And how your breath,
Matching mine,
Disfigured my bones in advance,
Contorting my spine.

I remember my spot in your pocket.
You said I’d be safe there.
I found stillness
When you locked it,
Content to be anywhere.

I remember us entwined on the shelf.
You told me that I was
A secret worth keeping.
I was unlike anyone else,
How I sing while I’m sleeping.

I remember it was just us,
Enveloped in eros,
Blind to the bind as it starts to fray.
And now you don’t see me
Like you saw me yesterday.

I remember writing our story,
To prove how it happened,
As a token for grieving.
I etched our lives out onto a page
To re-create the book worth reading.

I remember now how,
Transfixed on an else,
My world shifted too.
All I wanted was hazel,
But my eyes clung to blue.

I remember the reunion.
I evaded your gaze.
But when you gave your toast
There I knew
I romanticized your ghost.

Mae Wood

Come into me.
Let me remind you why human contact is absolute necessity.
Let me grab those hips of yours, and bring you in close enough to show you that you will never lose me.
I want to bite your lips and fill your mouth with reasons why you’ll never want to belong to anyone else.
I’ll let you trail your fingers down my back as a map of the places you’ve taken me.
You’ll fill my ears with the noises you make and remind me that the only thing I Want to get high off of is your laugh.
And when I whisper that I love you, it’ll never be out of secrecy, but rather out of the certainty that you literally leave me breathless.

Alle Boo

 Nicole Duranza

April came and went soundly this year,
Differing acutely from Aprils before when
It entered drenched in seething recollections,
Taunting and flaunting my skewed misdirection.

It would invade my skull and occupy my breast
As if a ton of feathers held weight in my chest.
I wouldn’t cut it out, it deserved to be there as
A constant reminder of the scars that I bare.

No image of you or the sound of your voice
Would placate my tremors since you had no choice.
I can no longer hear the spark in your laughter,
Just silence and feeling the lacking long after.

April kicked and screamed and bit and scratched,
Digging its nails in my skin and its teeth in my back.
But April came and went soundly this year
And I find no solace in that.

Mae Wood