TheCourtRose

I ask you to forgive me this broken, crooked dance, though dancing is what we do- who we are A divine collision of skin, heart and limb It continues, the music has never stopped long enough for us to catch our breath Take stock of broken fingers and toes, to ponder the missteps of the past  In rare moments, when silence is stretching between beats, I find there isn't much I wouldn't give to have your understanding The dance continues, the music moves on My wish an echo on the floor, a sound to never reach your ears Perhaps, one day, our steps will reach each other again and I will find the heart to tell you

I. Didn't occur to me that the dashboard should have lights- until I got lost Driving at night, got used to squinting under streetlights, guessing at the speedometer It's funny what the mind can adapt to But when the truck died and a friendly jump sparked the engine, the possibility of lights suddenly loomed into view It was a button, you see Just to the left Small and insignificant to the immediate eye It needed a slight turn In the sudden illumination, moving forward was that much easier  II. The white halls are dark, a white so clinical it permeates the bones faster than eyes adjust Overhead, broken lights stab into the black, accusing fingers pointing down at a stranger creeping forward Each turn shivers the spine more and more Until the end, on the last turn, rounding the final bend to find a corner awash in light, with a simple, black coffin It is my coffin It is waiting for me

Skin winking against bathroom candlelight A breath in, the shore recedes Sea water ebbs in a waiting belly button Breath out, come the slinking waters again A shiver of wind, goosebumps now miniscule footprints on this pale beach Waxed moonlight glides over sand, highlighting the wavering tracks

#1 Manic just underneath the exoskeleton Brain drips Heart stalls #2 Field of fireflies are waiting for me, so I close my eyes and give chase #3 Exoskeleton cannot save the softer insides that bump, burst and bruise #4 Green grow the rushes, so, but Ireland cannot save us She can hold us close, a mother brings her children home for sleep

My love for you is a pinstripe suit when we switch bodies So, you'll have tailored lines and swagger when you return to form My love for you is multiple orgasms and an excellent come-hither stare when you switch into mine (You're welcome, by the way) You promised to protect my skin and bone the way you do not protect your own, and I know that is your love for me I have compassion in cupfuls brimming about the house for you, overflowing in case you should need some on a bad day You fill the bathtub and pour in solitude for me because I never know when to stop and stand still   My love for you is alight with pride and patience, encased in a velvet box, tied around with a ribbon both black and white, and every color in between  This box is right inside the front door of my heart, standing on its own shelf It is within easy reach, not hidden away in backrooms lined in failed romance and aching regrets It is a tiny monument, a testament, that you are

I know your heart ain't broke A few valves got switched, there are bruises, accumulating scars It's not the same as broken but it hurts, it stings, a paper cut full of lemon oil and sweat But when lips and eyes and hands come to mind, so do you When I think of immortalized time, sensuality and light, you sneak in When I remember long kisses in quiet, deserted buildings, your careful, soft movements flitter in the back door of my brain So, when the cuts are smarting and full of ache When someone convinces you you are anything less than you actually are You've got a brief reminder that they're wrong, that you're luminous and lovely and someone, somewhere, is thinking of you

Are all over my house In a trail of happy glasses, clinking and cluttering up space Photos you insist on printing immeidately are under glasses Magnified and blurry smiles, arms, teeth I'll miss you when you're gone

Heat melting icy bones Can't blame far northern winds for these layers of frost This winter began long ago Believed fallow earth had nothing to produce But its fissured maw is opening, begging for rain Lips of dirt are softening under the thaw, becoming pliant Beneath rivulets of rushing snow, skin is shifting, a belly clenches in hunger Hungry, again Forever Even beneath frozen tundra, hunger waited But how to feed such flesh? How to fill up empty bones and discarded veins? Pour water into cracked, cold earth, for what? A field of flowers on this patch of dirt?  Build a house? Raise a family, to tumble and grow amongst weeds? To what end does this winter end? Pale, breathing flesh uncovered Slushing ice a thin layer between skin and sky To what end?

In my dream the toilets were clogged and overflowing Our father, in thigh rubber boots, managed to slosh through the shit without much of a blink I was gagging My skin crawled with lice, through my hair and over my lips While you looked on, as if none of this had anything to do with you In reality I kissed your head when we were in the courtroom Wanting so much to reach the you underneath chemical tracks and unhinged doorways The stale smell of baby powder hit my nose I wondered the last time you showered I was your sister for a split second with my lips against your hair But you're really a husk of once-was, never-will-be, has-beens I can't give up on you I can't save you When we visited our father in the hospital you were too weak to walk in shoes you chose because mother said you were too skinny just the day before I carried you in the parking garage so your feet would stop hurting I love you I'

My daddy has a bright blue heart Sometimes bleeding, always beating My mama's heart is shy and takes some coaxing, but her mind is sharp green glass My blood runs orange, though and it leaks into my smile at night I am a sunbeam swallowed on a moonlit road Sometimes these golden hands get frustrated, get insistent, become so sure of the right way they get in their own way I have my daddy's heart, my mama's mind, but my blood belongs to me When it's too much When the world slaps me across the face My heart shivers and bows, my mind winks it's emerald eyes and these golden fingers wipe away orange light dripping from my lips

My hair, your ink The price paid for words to finish the story  Knowledge, the letters to write them You cut a lock with your sickle A half crescent light against the pale comets in your flesh You pulled me from my sheets for this, into your waking dream My hair crushed to paint, mortar and pestle your tongue and fingers White parchment a milky way, waiting hands arched with a quill

Your arms circle my waist, cheek pressed to my belly Eyes looking to me brown, blue, green Braids a thick, colored cascade down your back Tomorrow, your soft weight in the crook of my arm Down of your hair red, brown, black or unexpected blond I sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow to you every night Yesterday you fly through the kitchen door in a rage I don't understand you, suddenly we're a million miles apart I see myself in your cheekbones, the line of your brow My body echoing your name Now, I'm on the porch in the sunshine Your children play near the lake I see you on the shore when I take my last breath Even now I wait I'd pull down the stars for you, little one Anything for you

There was a candle in the window when I came home The steady glow cutting insistent into the early morning night Your light, a ribbon across time, waxed into the letters amassed between us So, save a dance for me, my love, on my wedding day Me in cream with red lace You in purple with shoulders bared We'll scandalize them all, twin skirts rustling Lay our letters underfoot, leave heel prints on the backbone of words Kick off shoes so lines mud-seep between painted toes On the wedding cake, I'll light a candle for you When I hold my daughter for the first  time, place a taper in the window  1,000 lights for a 1,000 lifetimes, a history written in wax, in words Whatever comes next, whoever comes last, you came first and you came carrying light

I have felt your threaded fingers grasp my tongue My body circling slowly in the scarlet silk of your hands I press into your palm, a ravenous supplicant Unraveling slowly against your skin the splay of my hair coils and uncoils I cry out a need for release, your name Take me, Ishtar Flay against my skin the red and black rose of your lips I have known no deeper hunger than when I am in your embrace You anger is weighted with the lust of a thousand stars You admonish my needs- I have given you warriors you cry out Wielders of power, men and women, wells of the deep, and you have only played with trinkets I am swallowed against the waves of your insistence, the penetrating grope of your fingertips as you lay me bare inside the cup of your palms, your breath steals shivers across my dampened skin Or is it fear that prickles this flesh? or the weight of knowledge hovering atop my bones? Knowing that in the vast array of experience, in the entirety of dancing

The house was on the hill and from a night of pub crawling we made it to the top Already too many bottles to count, my ID fallen into the sofa, although I didn't know that at the time Your roommate would hand it to me the next morning when I grabbed my apple red coat His brogue would stop my hand on the door jamb, a knowing look on his face A day later he would say at the bar, where I went out of pride to look you in the eye, flip back my hair in nonchalance I could not feel, "I saw you in that bright red coat of yours as you were doing your dirty little slut walk back home" I never should have been in the house on the hill and when my friend left for the night, I should have grabbed my coat, gone with him instead Weeks before, when you said I was all boots and bitch, you explained love to me, "Find a girl who's like a dog. You can kick her and she'll keep coming back" Smarter to know this was your life philosophy, not a g

Her name was Scarlet and her lips are scarlet. Youth in her thighs belies the age of her face. Couldn't be a spit from sixteen, but casually strokes the microphone and talks about body fluids. Of orgasms, of cum and blood. Mouth of a sailor, body of a woman, insecurities of a child. Female adolescent perfection. Want to put my coat on her shoulders. No puritanical need, but to shade the discomfort she finds in her own skin. Her body a stranger's clothes. Her mouth not so far away from mine. Nothing  can quite unravel adulthood like a raging girl on the cusp. More self-aware than not, she is laughing at her own parody. Laughing at the idea of being on "the cusp" of anything. A reddened puppet hanging from lopsided strings. Her lips swallow the stage, swallow me, swallow our collective silence. I want to tell her that it will be okay, but I can't when surrounded by teeth and gums. Words get stuck in between- No it won't. And- Absolutely it will! crunching

She is the spark firelight girl Tall shot of whiskey in the dark Careful of the electricity and amber lined eyes It's all distraction from the stark relief yellow on sidewalk cracked black She's lost before, you see Her wild dance so careful in reality When she throws her head back, underneath lightning strikes and molten gold tongue, is overwhelming deep

Your car sat outside my building for a moment or two Making a call, lighting a cigarette I need to believe that you were catching your breath Put my head against the cracked wall, bracing my palms on the cool, cascading plaster Not able to go up, not yet with the stairs so dark You're you, I'm me We are who we are and again I am facing a stairway " I love you " I had said "For every step in your building, I love you For every right foot and left foot, I love you I love you, a thousand times, in a million places In ten years of memory, I love you" My building, this time, not yours Going up and not down Leaving your car a woman instead of a girl Things have changed, but not this tornado of starlight Every step up these stairs is a step away, but closer to something else Closer to who I'm meant to be Irony, yes, that I finally see me as you always have Too late Words, so furious in my lips and hands, are slow to come tonight

Stealing pomegranates from my lips a mouthful a swollen throat Pulling, pulling tart skin and seed, juice between teeth bleeding red worlds Is this my pulse or yours? Your pomegranate or mine? In the great exchange of flesh and bone, lips bow before hunger like forbidden fruit

My hands are clumsy, overwhelming tendencies to drop piles of dishes (Literal piles) Nothing fragile is safe from this constant state of shifting My platelets of blood clink against each other Porcelain red disks jolting, fighting towards the surface for the rush of first blush Streams of blood, crowded waters fluxing beneath overlapping tiles of skin, protein, sebum and ink Balancing scales protecting the world beneath, the fissures emerging from deep under flesh, from the darkest, wildest recesses of body Dishes piled one on top of the other When the wall tumbles down and your body hits dirt One crack is easy to fix, maybe two But this heart wonders, what about three? or four? or the truly, truly shattered

More typical is the madcap rush A decision made, flight booked, boxes packed and gone, gone, gone No lingering kisses or slow remembrance No in-between grey of no longer here, but not there quite yet Except for this time It is no easy feat to shut the door on 5 years of a place A heavy chapter with leather bound pages and bold stroked ink The characters clamoring for their monologues and soliloquies and because they mean the world to you, you must give them due Because, who knows? Right? That's why it hurts, why the chapter is made of lead From here forward, who knows Who knows about returns, about futures Who knows, truly, what comes next All goodbyes are blind, folded against the reality of stepping into the abyss So, despite the urge to leave quiet, quickly, letting yourself be a stain of lipstick on the mirror, a left behind scarf You endure the ritual of letting go You close the pages because the alternative to being blindfolded is risking that f

Wanting you has become a visceral thing Descending from dream into every day I simply wait for the longing to come an expected afternoon occurrence around 3pm Noon winds down, the arms of clocks sweeping low Wondering why my arms are empty of you Where are you to discuss the day, talk stories, share poetry? We're supposed to watch the sun sink slowly, holding our breath as the sky smartly changes coats, sunbeams giving way to a swollen night Convinced my collarbone is bereft of your teeth for no good reason at all I know you'd put your coat over my shoulders in the falling chill Just as surely as I know the glint in your eye, the unspoken ache forever beneath your words, and the field of fireflies you've held in secret for my escape As familiar as the dream when you slid your arms about my waist, your face in the mirror I find you, again again in my mind and on the page A thousand miles away, right next to me, all at once Can't pinpoint when this,

She asked me for my fear when I burned the dried rose at her feet though she was not one to demand sacrifice My heart, full to brim with yearning, an unfamiliar loneliness, yet scoured clean by the rolling tide of uncertainty, faltered in its answer Before, she would raise her chin, surround me in her cloak The cats shifting restless about us, vying for attention and I knew then, I knew she was the better part of me But to rip my fear away from me now? It is too much I watch the bow of her lips and unrelenting eyes The feathers of her cloak shift, their dark reflecting lantern flames For a moment, I felt her chariot drive into my heart, demanding an answer- What am I willing to give for what I seek? I cry out, clutching tighter to the fear that has become so familiar to my soul I look back upon the girl I was, casting myself to her feet so willingly, a candle flame hungry for its maker I see the woman I am, no longer a candle, but a roaring inferno

Brain and body crusted in panic A hardened film of scales that flakes and cracks, only to resurface and congeal once more I am somewhere beneath the crust I am under the blood and softened tissue, fissures in the skin, liquid cells rising and beginning to fester Pus is a definite sign of bacteria and infection Leave it be, they say The human urge to purge and push is too great for me stay my hands I have no fear of puckering scars Doctors never account for the erosion of waiting, the toll it exacts from the basic functioning systems like eating, thinking, existing All my organs are hushed They have ceased their frenetic hustle, paused with quaking kneecaps I breathe, just barely, somewhere underneath This dragon scale skin shifts, a river that undulates with sporadic inefficiency Bloating and expanding until I am the throat of a frog, accordion filled lungs, a cascading filing cabinet, a volcano mid-cough, every inch of my body waiting Only to deflate,

The shade of this tree is sickening, leaving a twisted hollow gut in its wake Roots rancorous deep, hapless spirits finding succor beneath its branches choked slowly into submission with insidious silence A fruit, half eaten, discarded to earth in a jealous, negligent fit An angry fist imprinted into the skin, clutching the pits with possessive greed Seeds with such hope in the beginning, a long, unfilled promise Longing, love, lust All the makings of a hallmark romance But time and pain will have its due, and partings are ever laced with loss Seeds rotted, the fist circled tight with vulture clarity Insistent anger clasping polluted possibilities of yesterday Bloodied pulp seeps through, but nails bite deeper Satisfaction in the mirrored, mocking pain Seeds, decaying now, tainted inside the vice From this truth, a tree is planted and beneath its bough, no rest could ever be found If the fist had only released its hold, uncurl its ashen fingers, allow the

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