Prompt: smoky kisses, hiding from the heat, and cedar trees.


  "The place where I held you and we kissed in the rain..."
  She smiled sarcastically, flicking the ash off her cigarette and refusing to look at him. "I thought you said it wasn't all that?"
  "Yeah, well, I said a lot of things." She snorted and took a drag on the cigarette. He looked over at her. "You're still not inhaling. I told you, these are expensive, and if you're going to smoke with me, you better fucking inhale."
  She finally looked at him. "Then you'd better teach me."
  He pushed off the side of the car, and gestured for her to hand him the cigarette. "Fine. Just wrap your lips completely around it." He stuck the cigarette in her mouth and held it there. "Now, inhale, just like you're trying to breathe, but through the cigarette." She inhaled deeply, and felt the smoke fill her lungs. When she started coughing, he removed the cigarette from her mouth with a triumphant smile. "You did it. Are you alright?"
  She was bent over, coughing and smiling. She straightened, grinned at him, and took the cigarette back. "I'm fine."
  He nodded, and finished his cigarette in one drag. Flicking it into the alligator-infested lake, he walked around to the other side of the car and stood waiting for her. "Hurry up and finish yours, there's a place I want to show you."
  She took her time, still trying to inhale the smoke without choking on it. When she was through, she nonchalantly followed his example. He said nothing, just walked across the cracked and deserted street to the woods lining it.
  A short distance from the road, he stopped in a clearing and looked straight up at the almost perfect circle of blue sky above. She followed his example, wondering if it meant as much to him as the parking spot next to the lake, wondering if he loved it for the permeating scent of cedar, or the fresh view of the sky.
  "It's nice. Not as hot as by the lake." Not that it was much better; she could still see the sweat trickling down the sides of his face. She smiled and sang under her breath: "And I watched as the sweat ran down your face, reached up, and I caught it at your chin, licked my fingertips..."
  He looked back at her and smiled absentmindedly, coming over to stand beside her. "Mmhmm." He looked at her, staring until she turned to meet his gaze full on. "Is it bad that I've missed you?"
  "Not at all," she murmured, softened by this sudden confession. She hadn't been expecting any shows of emotion from him today.
  "Is it bad that I want to kiss you?"
  "No..." She stepped closer to him and cupped his jaw with her fingers. His mouth tasted like cigarettes and coffee, his other lovers, and it made her smile against his lips. She decided that whoever said kissing a smoker was like licking an ashtray had obviously never licked an ashtray before.

"Leaving her should be a sin. In which case I intend to be a saint."
   - Jonathan "Edward" Best

"I think it's... well, we're both wicked self-destructive girls. I'm sure that we'll go through our entire lives, end up married and happy, and every time we have sex in the shower with our spouses, we'll eye the razorblade over his shoulder and think about how /good/ it would be if after he was done, we could sneak off and..."
   -Rachel Mace

18th Floor Balcony, by Blue October

I close my eyes and I smile
Knowing that everything is alright
To the core
So close that door
Is this happening?
My breath is on your hair
I'm unaware
That you opened the blinds and let the city in
God, you held my hand
And we stand
Just taking in everything.

And I knew it from the start
So my arms are open wide
Your head is on my stomach
And we're trying so hard not to fall asleep
Here we are
On this 18th floor balcony.
We're both flying away.

So we talked about mom's and dad's
About family pasts
Just getting to know where we came from
Our hearts were on display
For all to see
I can't believe this is happening to me
And I raised my hand as if to show you that I was yours
That I was so yours for the taking
I'm so yours for the taking
That's when I felt the wind pick up
I grabbed the rail while choking up
These words to say and then you kissed me...

I knew it from the start
So my arms are open wide
Your head is on my stomach
And we're trying so hard not to fall asleep
Here we are
On this 18th floor balcony...
We're both flying away.

And I'll try to sleep
To keep you in my dreams
'til I can bring you home with me
I'll try to sleep
And when I do I'll keep you in my... dreams

I knew it from the start
So my arms are open wide
Your head is on my stomach
And we're trying so hard not to fall asleep
So here we are
On this 18th floor balcony, yeah

I knew it from the start
My arms are open wide
Your head is on my stomach
No, we're not going to sleep

Here we are
On this 18th floor balcony... we're both..
Flying away

Give me
cigarettes or razorblades,
because baby, all I want
is to self-destruct.
You're an addiction
I'll eventually kick,
hide you away in a little black box
next to everything that ever made me smile.
   You gave it all back,
   Like it meant NOTHING
   to you.
But for now,
I keep a regular stock
of things to hurt me:
clove cigarettes for when I want it artistic,
old journals for when I want it nostalgic,
alcohol for when I want it dull,
razors for when I want it sharp,
and you for when I want it to almost kill me.
   Just almost, though.

I was like, "Ugh, you're acting just like the crazy ex girlfriend!"
And then I thought, "Wait a tic, I am the crazy ex girlfriend. Might as well go for the gold."

What I do when I should be sleeping

If I were a musician,
I would write myself a lullabye
and try to get to sleep.
But that's your dream.
I'm just a poet
who pulls all-nighters,
while my eyes go soft focus
and I think how cool this picture would look
with a cigarette
and you in the background
sleeping on a couch.
Hell, the picture would look good
with just you and the couch.
I guess that's how I imagined it would be --
us together, slender bohemians
living off music and words
in a one-room apartment.
Well.
Everyone's allowed their fairytale, right?
I should probably stop this,
but fuck it --
I'll write you as many poems as I want.

Another Notch in the Wall of Poems to You

You'll be gone in a few months.
Off to the middle of everything,
alone,
leaving me behind.
I hope you still have
my shampoo;
hope you think of something happy
when you reach for it
through the steam.
I could fill this poem
you'll never read
with the typical questions
that I already know
most
of the answers to.
Or
I could end it like this,
knowing that you probably
wouldn't understand
all the unwritten lines.

As I move forward in time,
everything goes dark:
all light sinks with the sun
into the sea
and is engulfed in thick, black blue.
It occurs to me
that I would never know we were falling
if not for the feeling in my stomach.
I receive no such alert
and arrive safely in a light-polluted
Stockholm airport.
I walk down a long corridor
toward the light,
which does, in fact,
lead to some form of purgatory:
I am surrounded by Svenska--
the air language--
and nervously wondering
if he forgot my promise.
Then I see the golden-blonde head
of the wolf-king,
purveyor of Swe-punk and Adrian Alexis,
and frequenter of underground gothic cafes.
I hear his loud, excited "Hej!"
(One of the few words in my limited vocabulary),
and run giggling to tackle him.
Lungt, I think with a smile.
Lungt, big brother.

(conversation before boarding a bus in our pajamas...)

  "What is this madness?!" The looks on the college students' faces were affronted. Bewildered. Confused. They were lost in a proverbial sea of pajama-clad high school students and didn't quite know what to think.
  We sat proudly in our flannels and dessert-coated cotton shirts, laughing triumphantly and brandishing our pens at a highly skeptical world. "This! Is! SPARTA!!"

I never would've known
that Dante's Inferno
could lead to swapping Chaucer tales
on a too-small bench
in a V-shaped room,
where the only warm skin
is the skin that you're touching.
I never would've known
that German could ever be as sexy
as it was
when you said you loved my feet,
or translated Himmel into my ear
without using the book.
I never would've known
that I could have such
random, intellectual conversations
with someone who
a.) I met roughly 6 days ago, and
b.) Is putting together a puzzle
while conversing on human psychology
and the brilliance of classical composers.
I never would've known
that I could
be myself so shamelessly
laugh so endlessly
snuggle so comfortably
and communicate so intelligently
if you hadn't had
such an attractive voice.

Sorry babe,
I'm all sexed out for the night.
I've lost interest
in the drive of your primal urge,
the words that take little thought to say,
and giving you what you want.
(It's a lot less than what I'm looking for.)
The games are fun enough,
but I always go home
feeling like a lie,
because I took a piece of myself
out of order
and concentrated it
until it seemed more like your
neonlights and cherry lipgloss,
and less like my
dusk-lit, tentative fingers.

I remember telling him that if he cried, I'd kill him. I found out later that he did, after I left, and that's when I cried, but I didn't want to cry then. No one ever wants to get all choked up in the middle of a cafeteria walkway. No one ever wants to get choked up anywhere, for that matter, but some places are better for it than others. Like your dorm, all alone. I had a picture of his smile, and that's what I wanted to see.
He had his arms around me, so when I had to go, we waddled together out the door. It was bright outside. He hugged me, pressing me tightly against his chest and rubbing my back. I was trying to capture the way his body felt against mine, the way his size made me feel safe. I had one hand on his side, the other on his shoulder as he fulfilled his 11:11 wish and kissed me one last time.
Last, I thought as I walked to White Auditorium. Last, ever, never again, goodbye.
I looked back once, for the hell of it, but I didn't see him. I briefly wished for the other life we spoke of, where we wouldn't say goodbye like this.

All who wander, are not lost...

I wander,
but am not lost
among words,
among small people with hairy feet,
or his coffee-stained smiles.
I spin in gothic-hippie-sheik;
found in a neon swirl of peace love and happiness.
I grasp my own meaning
in foreign languages;
to curse, love, or sing at you, for you, to you.
I am not lost
among men in skirts,
making the music
I would sweat to
as a small child
in my mother's house.
My father's kitchen;
the smell of his masterpiece
mingling with the dirt and grass
under my toes
as I try to reconnect
with my own history
through blood memory
and her words.
I so desperately want to believe
that I will find myself alone;
find myself under his sheets;
find myself reflected by the splashes of emotion
that so obviously mean something cryptic;
find myself smiling
inside-out, but not upside-down.
Five points in a circle don't scare me,
but, my friend, you invert them,
flipping nature,
and that does worry me.
I trust you,
so perhaps I could be lost,
but I doubt it:
I know my way
through this oak grove
and can pick and choose my path
like you pick and choose your outfits.
I discard mine on the floor,
and you can't get through to my bed;
you won't read the writing on the walls
because it takes too much time,
but it is the Rosetta Stone
to keep you
from getting lost
in me


NOTE: The 'you' in this poem refers to different people at different times.

B. S.

I like the dynamic tension
of your voice on my words,
even more intimate
than you lips dusting my shoulders
with crisp, minty kisses,
because I wouldn't let just anyone do it.
You voice stumbles occasionally,
like hesitant fingers
trembling their way
across shivering skin.
Except that you never hesitate.
You said you had enough confidence
for me to borrow some,
so I will:
I'm not afraid to admit
that I'll really miss you.
I'm going to stop
before I start sounding Bryan-esque,
but know that I'll remember you in German,
and a baseball-field blue sky.