TheCourtRose

Hoping to drown the dialogue in my brain, but the music has become the script, and it's playing on repeat. (We are all fools in love.) Despite all wisdom to the contrary, my love never stopped. I removed myself from the room, yet continue to watch through the window, like a flickering, ongoing screen. I never wanted you to move on. (Because I can't. Not yet.) Don't ask me why, because I'm not sure of that either, when everything else comes with so much certainty these days. It's elemental. No one debates the essence of fire, or the fact that we breathe to live. It is what it is, is it not? (Foolish.) There is nothing precious or careful about now. Indulging in memories and music, masochistic rubbing salt. If the truth were bloodied claws, I'd rake out your eyes with it. Put it on film. Play it on repeat until I was finally blackened against the memory of you.

Grumpy and in my head, you wanted to go for a walk in the snow, maybe dinner, but I head out for tacos and winter air, not fit for company. Trying to appear marginally helpful, and grab the trash bag of donations on my way out. Roommates warn me about a bag nearly broke, but I leave full steam ahead nonetheless. Cramped on the inside, cold air is disheartening instead of bracing, and I am more internal and brooding than when I left home. At the light, I think about how my best friend says you don't really need to push the crosswalk button, it's only there to make us feel in control. I start to cross, watching the little white man blinking in agitation, and the bag splits open, spills out with eight seconds left to go. I can't help it. I start giggling. I giggle and kick and gather fallen jeans, shirts, whatnots, panties, hangers and doodads scattered across intersection asphalt. Giggle turns to laugh as I stuff little bits of life into the donation box. Cars are honking.

When I teach I tell my students- think about what you're saying. Understand the words you're using. Words like ambivalence, and all those mixed emotions. Unless you mean ambiguous, when it could go either way.  To kindle isn't just for fires and romance, but also a bunch of newborn kittens. (A kindle of kittens is a real thing evidently.) Talk about infatuation. A short-lived, obsessive passion. Puppy love and all its squandering. An ESL student still doesn't understand, so I stop. I ask when she first met her husband, how did she feel? I look her in the eye. The class gets quiet as she thinks. A blush, rosy and insistent, creeps up her neck, into her face. She giggles. I yell, That's it! It isn't enough to know and say a word. Understand it, feel it, use it, I say. Be excited about this new found arsenal on your tongue. I wonder what to teach next. Morose was on the list, but I am thinking, too, about unrequited. But would it be unrequited love or unreq

There are so many ways to be careful. But careful in high doses simply becomes cowardice. There is nothing hesitant about the blood pumping through this heart. Nothing fragile about the veins and ligaments and bones in this body. Bodies do not hesitate to function, to need and breathe. There is nothing subtle in this rampaging desire to be free.  But I have kept my scarlet quiet. Shared this color in tiny increments; shelling it out delicately so as not to waste one tiny grain of red. Careful, careful. As if this is a finite thing, easily quantified and controlled. Scarlet, whether quiet or screaming, is limitless. So far, I have been a coward. The hearts of others have curtained away these strobing beats of blood red light. Kept safe from the truth. That I am a red, wild thing. I do not want to be tamed. I do not want to slow down. I am not sorry. Being nice is always the beginning of emasculation, showing no faith in our ability to survive. Quiet, quiet now, with kid gloves

I maintain your dreams about classmates and bisexual beauties is far more about you than about them. You ask if I'm lesbian, and no, not yet, I say. But it seems like my girlfriend in your dream is quite the conundrum. She didn't cum for me, which is frustrating, even if she's not-a-real-girlfriend in your dream, which isn't about her or me, per se, but you.  Guess the 200 plus male lovers haven't figured her out any more than she has. She's pale, you say, and covered in tattoos. In love with a woman (Me? You never did specify) and waiting for the right one to finally make her orgasm. She has a great tongue, and I sincerely hope "great" means wicked and quick. Her tragedy and frustration tastes familiar. More so, perhaps it's because she sounds a lot more like me than she doesn't. Maybe you're dreaming about me having sex with myself, waiting  for orgasms, holding out for the divine feminine. Maybe there isn't two women, but j

Everything was quiet Our room was shadowed, silent Hallways did not echo footsteps (or security, considering we borrowed the conference room) Lights overhead were a hushed orange glow and florescence attempted to pour in through connecting doorways The room itself pushed against the light, clinging to darkness, an insistent child Even you and I, a combined volume of turbines on an average day, were quiet Scarce breathing, I'd say On the floor the vastness of the room made me sleepy Looking up was the only way to quantify the experience (Forever was too short a stay) Not often does my mind find peace, the moment being the only experience that matters Imagine what the cameras saw if they could see into Chicago Room #7 Two figures, head to head, puzzle pieces A horizontal Tetris game, shifting and moving to invisible sound but barely touching at all Your lips were quiet, too Unexpectedly so, when they finally found mine A silent consumption, even as t

Don't jump, baby I know the fog's rollin in You can't see for the soot in your eye Can't smell or taste or touch Everything hurts, it does I know, baby, I know There's no warnin label, no cautionary tale When heartbreak comes it's tornado swift and deadly Sucked the air out your lungs, tore the floor from your feet You're grasping at ledges now, the only concrete in the house Don't jump, baby I know the fog's creepin close When they say a soul's dark night they ain't talkin curtains, or blankets of midnight It's aftermath Comes in the wake of storm It's quiet and coiled, creeps in your mouth when you sleep, scratches your eyes while awake Wears you down, down, down like a hunted fox by a pack of hounds Makes you feel like jumpin is the best way to go But it ain't, baby, it ain't the way to go Cause when the fog clears and all that soot is out your eye You'll see us standin here, holding