A Flicker

How do you explain that you have no wishes left? No dreams to follow because they've all broken like china dolls at your feet? How do you explain the giving up and the moving on and the emptiness that remains because of all those dreams that have died and all those wishes that never came true?

How do you describe the jading and the hopelessness? How do you explain the scars that no one can see? Where can you go? What is left once the flames of passion have burnt out and the phoenix has shriveled before it tasted the ashes?

How do you begin again when you don't even know how you started in the first place? What is left when all the time has been wasted and there is no belief in magic any longer?

How do you express the torture of that small flicker of hope that refuses to die even when everything else has? How do you talk about that faint glimmer of something that cries out that this can't be the end? How can you stand it? That tiny glimpse of something that refuses to give up, but isn't strong enough to re-ignite all that has been destroyed.

America

"Why did you even come here?" she snarled, her lips twisting in anger. "You don't belong. None of you do."

"I've come, looking for America." I replied, my English pained and stilted. How could I ever explain that my dreams were filled with this place, filled with all the joys and dreams of generations? How could I explain her own great-grandparents' joy and desperation as they crossed the waters, their eyes searching for the bright torch of Liberty?

This land, soaked with dreams and tears, the hopes of generations drenching the earth until it is burgeoning with it. Like a rose in full bloom. And, like a rose, the thorns of prejudice pierce my fragile skin. They all stare at me, their eyes full of hatred and bias. I can't describe the dream that I followed here. The belief that I fought so hard to maintain.

The dream that America is a mother with her arms flung open wide to embrace her weary children. The torch of home burning through the mists and the fog, the moon competing with it. With this belief, we ran and fought, screaming and dying for the dream of America. A dream of freedom and liberty. A dream of acceptance and love beyond our faults. The dreams being crushed in the fists of the woman in front of me.

She hates me, for no reason other than I am different. I am not from here. I am not "American." I've lived here for five years now, I'm only a short way away from being a full citizen, but I'll never be "American." I'll never be what she believes I should be because I am different, because I was not born here.

I ignore her, my eyes straying toward the torch held aloft. I smile, though the tears are dripping down my face, stung by her words and the dreams that slowly die. The light I followed here, to escape the starvation and the crush of dreams deferred, has been burnt out for years. The America I dreamed is a dream that has died. I close my eyes and feel the incessant throb in my chest, my broken heart refusing to give up on this dream.

I look into the eyes of Liberty, her torch held aloft. Her words echo in the still waters of my mind. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, Tempest-tossed to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I've gone to look for America.

Happy Birthday

A miracle happened, when you were born. The stars aligned in ways no mere mortal can define. There you were in all your glory and innocence, waiting to be filled with the breath of transcendent decadence. We did not worship you, nor did we proclaim you on high, as though you were a Goddess cloaked in mortality.
Instead we welcomed you with quiet whispers and light kisses, saying softly, "Welcome to the world, darling. Welcome to your destiny. Welcome to all the life there is to live and all the wonders that exist. You are a star in the universe of our existence, may you shine ever brighter through the years."
May this year shine brighter than all the years before, sweetie.
Happy 17th to my beautiful baby sister.

A Birthday Letter

To my darling dearest baby sister whom I love and adore,
Tomorrow, at 1 in the afternoon you will be officially 17.
17 years ago you came into this world, the baby sister I always wanted. The one who kicked the palm of my hand whilst still in utero. The one who I would always find hiding inside the bottom cabinet with her baby dolls and her Shirley Temple curls.
And, 17 years later, you are still the little sister I absolutely love.
I can't believe you, my baby, are turning 17. It is both sweet and bitter. I miss you. I miss you being small enough for me to carry around and swing up above my head so that you could touch the sky. I miss you being with me all the time, even when you would annoy me. I miss talking to you about randomness. I even miss our petty disagreements.
I remember when you first started walking. I used to taste your baby food before I would feed it to you, because I wanted you to have the best. I used to change your diapers and give you baths. I used to read you books and chase you across the yard. And I know we can't do any of that anymore, you being 17 now, I still miss those days.
I am excited to see the young woman you are growing up to be. The one who isn't afraid to speak her mind, even though sometimes she should think first (it's a love!). The one who is a good friend. The one who is so beautiful. The one who is well read and has interesting musical tastes. I can't wait for you to enjoy your 17th year of life and I hope it is one of the best ever.
I love you darling.
Happy Birthday.
love, Me.

Let it Out

Don't say it. Don't you dare say it.
Don't let a thought slip between your lips.
Its not true, you can't possibly believe it.
You're deranged, delusional, wrong.
Don't say a word.

I have to scream it. I have to let it out.
Its the truth whether you believe it or not.
Truth cannot be erased because you say so.
I am disillusioned, diminished, crying out.
I have to scream.

I cannot scream, there is no air.
Don't say a word, even though it hurts.
I cannot speak, my voice has been stolen.
Don't let it out, no one must know.
I am screaming, but there is no sound.

Bisexual Bias

Dear Sir,
In regards to your article "Bisexual bias" in the IDS, I would like to say a few things.

"I’ve had a saying for a few years now. Bisexuals are like unicorns. You really want them to exist. But they just don’t."
1. Comparing a bisexual person to unicorns is mostly, if not entirely, ridiculous.
There are many cases in which unicorns can have existed, thus leading one to believe that you are saying bisexual homo sapiens do, in fact, exist.

Examples: If we were to go completely old school Biblical on the matter, if you are one who believes in the Bible, you would find there are several verses involving the unicorn. This might lead one to believe that you were saying that bisexuals at one time existed, but don't any longer. For your in-depth research (which I am sure you did for your article) verses involving unicorns can be found in the KJV Bible, said verses being: Numbers 23:22, Job 39:9, Psalms 29:6, Job 39:10, Numbers 24:8 and Psalms 92:10.

Or, if you don't believe in the Bible, we can look at the Narwhal, oft considered the Unicorn of the Sea or any other animal with one horn.
   *The word "unicorn" stems from early 13th century Old French "unicorne" and from Late Latin "unicornus" meaning, quite literally, "having one horn." Uni- meaning "one" plus cornus meaning "horn." If we go with this, that means that anything having one horn is considered a unicorn, making them quite real in the etymological sense of the word.

I'm sure, however, that you meant them in the purely fairy tale sense of the word, being a horse with a lion's tail, a single horn protruding from its head and a billy goat's beard (or, if you prefer, Pliny's version: a creature with a horse's body, deer's head, elephant's feet, lion's tail, and one black horn two cubits long projecting from its forehead). Or maybe you meant it in the allegorical sense, which was used as a tool by the Christians to teach morals. Such morals being that a Unicorn can only be tamed by a virgin (virgin in almost any sense of that word), the Unicorn being Christ in certain tales. And dire consequences for those who pretended to be virgin as they were skewered on the horn of the beast. That doesn't seem to fit quite as neatly as your original simile, but if we're talking of backwards philosophies it seems to fit quite nicely.

"It’s very difficult in our society to believe in something as free-spirited as bisexuality."
2. It also seems very difficult, in our society, to believe in Love and Marriage being uninhibited by things such as age, sexual preferences, gender, race, religion, etc. Love is apparently tethered to concrete ideas and laws. "Free-spirited" makes it sound as though it is a childish thing. Sexuality isn't an idea that we follow, like the Flower Power movement. Sexuality is not Hippies in the summer of '69. It is a deep and personal thing, grounded in one's sense of self. It is something we all find inside of ourselves. It is longing to be with another person in the most intimate way, sharing bodies and things that no one wants to talk about because they are "shameful."  And that longing is not restrained by your narrow view of the world.

"it’s threatening. For heterosexuals and homosexuals, we have to contend with only being attracted to half of the population. Those odds aren’t terrific. For someone who’s bisexual, the world is their genital oyster. It’s actually a very picturesque image. Men, women, who cares? I’m attracted to everyone."
3. I don't understand this part at all. You say it is threatening, bisexuality that is, but don't explain how it is threatening. How does bisexuality threaten your sexuality in any way? Truly, I'm curious. Explain to me, without Biblical or personal biases, how Bisexuality is threatening in any way, shape or form. You then say that the world is a "genital oyster." That is, not only, a vile pictorial image, but also shows just how little you understand about sexuality in general.

Yes, sexuality does, often involve, genitalia. However, there is so much more to sexuality than just sex. Sexuality is a strong basic instinct, a need, a desire, an attraction. It involves emotions and physical sensations. It can be impacted by the atmosphere one grows up in. It will never leave you. It is a key part of one's identity.

You make it sound almost as if sex meant nothing except, simply, getting one's rocks off. As if a bisexual is a selfish or greedy being for being attracted to more than one sex. Bisexuality is an attraction to either gender, that is true. But often the attraction is deeper than sexual. One can be attracted to anyone; beyond their gender, religion, sexual preferences, age, race, cultural background, etc. And what one finds sexually attractive doesn't even have to be human. There are those who are sexually attracted a person's mind or even inanimate objects. Wherever humans are involved there is no strict definition for sexuality. No strict definition for anything. We are more than the limits placed on us by other, simpler, creatures.

You say that "Those odds aren't terrific" when speaking of being "only" attracted to half of the population. Being attracted to only a man or only a woman isn't terrible. The odds are fine. In fact, when did odds even enter the picture? You make it sound like a race. As if we are all in a race with one another to see who is more attracted to who. It isn't a race. It isn't a game. There are no "odds." There are only people. People who love and hate, create and destroy, write good articles and shitty ones.

"Now, I am not bisexual."
4. Clearly.

"I also can’t assert assurance on things like Bigfoot, John F. Kennedy’s assassination or the contention of Jesus’ divinity."
5. I cannot say, with certainty that Bigfoot does or does not exist. JFK was, in fact, assassinated, though by whom is still up for debate. And whilst Jesus did exist, I cannot say with certainty that he was divine. However, I also can't say with certainty when we will die. I can't say that Coca Cola is the superior of all carbonated beverages. Nothing in this life is particularly certain. Truth is defined by who is looking at it, not by what it actually is.

"The real issue has to do with the male psyche and sexuality."
6. Yes, yes it does. At last, something we agree on! It DOES have to do with the Male psyche and sexuality. Men are generally insecure about their sexuality, no matter their preferences. Everything about sex makes one insecure. The length and width of his organ, whether he is doing well, how quickly he can reach orgasm, etc. Men are generally quite insecure with anything having to do with their own emotions and their being as well. I have yet to meet a man who is completely secure with being emotionally honest. Does that mean that he doesn't exist somewhere? Does that mean I am going to have to start writing wildly inaccurate articles on male emotions?

"The same notion just doesn’t extend to heterosexual women. You’d be hard pressed to find a straight woman finding the same sexual stimulation from watching two men go at it."
7. You, sir, clearly have never met a woman willing to talk about being aroused by two men "going at it" as you so delicately put it. I myself enjoy watching two men fornicate, kiss, etc. I find it arousing when a man kisses another man. The funny thing is that you would be "hard pressed" to find a straight woman who is NOT aroused by two men having sexual intercourse. There are numerous articles you can find about straight female arousal whilst watching male on male pornography, but I'm assuming you didn't actually try to find any. Your whole article suggests a lack of study on the topic at hand.

To quote a poster on one of the response brought up by my searches: "What I find hilarious, is that so many straight men assume that women don't find it erotic, just because THEY [men] don't."

"But after years of men grind stoning women’s sexuality to the fine powder it is today, why should anyone be the wiser? Two women going at it? Crack a beer and enjoy. Two men going at it? Ultimate party foul. It’s typically pretty hard to party once the gay bomb drops."
8. I don't understand that first sentence at all. "But after years of men grind stoning women's sexuality to the fine powder it is today," what does that even mean? Did you even edit this before posting it to such a public forum? And what do you mean by "grind stoning women's sexuality"?

Two women are having sex with one another and this is suddenly a party? Do men do that? They all get together and watch lesbian porn whilst drinking beer? Someone puts in a gay porno and then all bets are off? "Gay bomb?" Truly, your word choice is ridiculously childish.

"I can’t begin to believe in bisexuality in a society where men’s sexuality isn’t nearly as fluid as women’s."
9. The problem with men's sexuality being fluid has nothing to do with whether or not bisexuality exists, but lies (once again) with the male psyche. Men seem to have this preconceived notion that it is unacceptable for them to be bisexual. Out of all the homosexual and heterosexual men I have met it comes down to this idea that they have to choose. That there is no "this" and "that." It is all "this" OR "that." It astounds me, actually, the number of men who find some other men attractive, but won't do anything with that attraction because they also find women attractive. That is definitely a problem with today's society, you are correct on that part. Society says it is totally wrong to think or exist outside of the sexuality box it has created for us.

"Recently in Hollywood, loads of successful women have come out as bisexual."
10. Hollywood is DEFINITELY a good place to look for reality and facts. Plenty of people will say whatever it takes to become famous or to have the spotlight shine a bit brighter on them. That doesn't make it fact.

"But the future may be bright. Frank Ocean is one example of a successful man who’s admitted to having a relationship with a man."
11. I find it sad that the final breath of your article is a sarcastic, and pithy, "Men in the limelight aren't bisexual so no one can be bisexual."

I am a bisexual woman. I am proud of my sexuality and who I am as a person. I have a loving husband and a wonderful girlfriend. I can't imagine going through my life without either of them. There is more to my being attracted to them than their gender. More to my love for them than their genitalia. Its people like yourself, that raise the banners of prejudice and bias against what you don't understand and don't bother to understand.

sincerely,
Sarai.

The Step-Daughter

The end arrived during a Christmas party whilst my mother was away. Said party was being held at a friend's, a church friend. I must've been nineteen by then, increasingly fed up with my step-father's behaviours towards myself, my mother and my younger brother. We, as a family unit, had been devolving for years now, the cancer of it metastasizing until the whole of 'us' was being crippled by it.

I don't know at what point he stopped loving us. I'm not sure when it became reality and not just imaginative angst. I'm not sure when I realized that the noises from my mother's bedroom were of discomfort and not pleasure. We had all been miserable for years by this point and I can't tell you the origin. I don't know when it was that we began to fall apart, eroding from our former selves. I only recognized the end of it.

I remember it wasn't particularly cold. Unusual for the time of year. I tried to look nice, I always tried. Always trying to be prettier than I was in the hopes of snagging a husband to rescue me from the constant depression and the thumb of my step-father. When we arrived there were people we hadn't met before, children and already married men.

My step-father handled the introductions at that point.

"This is my daughter, Hannah." he said. "And this is my step-daughter, Sarai."

I don't remember if he introduced Christopher at all. I had been stabbed, murdered right in front of these strangers, though I gave no outward sign. For the first time, in 15 years, my "father" had introduced me as his step-daughter, not his daughter.

I had always fought against being called his daughter as a young girl. I had so romanticized my "real" father in my head that there was no room for any other man. Though I called him "dad" from a young age. He was never my "father." He was my "step-father." He was the one always pushing for me to drop the step. He had always wanted me to introduce myself as his daughter. I did, eventually, concede the point and consent to being called by his last name, even though he never legally made it mine. My whole identity became inexplicably intertwined with his.

I remember telling my "friends" once that my real last name was actually Lillie. The shock, was palpable. Even now I still have to identify myself by his last name. I am not known on my own. I doubt that I ever was.

I realized, with that punch, that it was the end. The end of everything we'd had for fifteen years. It was the first of several.

At the end of the day, the "friends" gave presents to everyone. Except myself and my brother. When Hannah asked why Christopher and I had received no presents it was met with silence. Awkward silence. Artificial apologies were given and my brother and I brushed it off, as if we hadn't just been rejected with finality. My step-father made no comment. We shrugged off the wounds this made, though the scars are ever present if you take a look at my insides.

Looking back, there were signs along the way. So many glaring neon absurdities dazzling the road to this point that I must've been blind to not notice. They'd been a long time coming, how had I not seen them?

We were abused. Emotionally, physically, mentally. We had been ignored, beaten and tortured all along that road. Never realizing that something was so desperately wrong. We had struggled, rising up like a tide, only to be smashed back into the sand every time. We were weights, burdens, nothing precious.

The end came in the form of a word. A word spoken during a party. A party I hadn't even wanted to go to. Surrounded by strangers and semi-strangers. The most hated word I've ever been called, uttered in such a trivial way, as if it wouldn't hurt.

"This is my step-daughter."

Wicked games we play

Wicked games we play with each other's hearts. Isn't it funny? Isn't it rich? You tell me you love me, but you never really meant it. We never meant the things we said, but those are the wicked games we play. Like hearts aren't fragile, like falling in love is easy and falling out of love even easier. I didn't want to fall in love with you. I didn't want to turn my heart inside out and show all of its contents to you.

I am ablaze and you are the only saviour from this devastatingly beautiful madness. Its a wicked game, sweetheart, the lies we tell. What an evil thing to do, letting me believe you could ever love me the way I love you. What tangled webs we weaved playing these games of heart and heart-break. I'm losing, but I feel like I've won the whole world in a paper cup.

The moon is on fire, a jewel on the neck of the sky, surrounded by diamonds. You are my moon, my sun, my beginning and my end. The wicked games we played, no longer pretend. Save me, save me from you. Save me from this breathtaking insanity. I don't want to be in love with you. I don't want to bathe in your scent, like it is frankincense or myrrh. I don't want to drink you down as though I was lost in the desert with no water. Yet, you are the sweetest thing I've ever tasted and yours is the only perfume I want.

I don't want to fall in love with you and the wicked games we played, knowing they could never be true.

The Seed

I am something and I am nothing. Whittle me down to my base ingredients and what do you have?
I am a seed waiting for the sun to shine before blossoming into rosy hues and full petals.
I am a witness to the massacre of my body by time. I am a stumbling block of my own design. Yet I have the power to rebuild, to renew, to regenerate. I have to power to soar and to accept nothing less than what I deserve.
The music within me is a heartbeat, it echoes in my ears and travels through the air. My spirit is a freewheeling bird dancing on a playful breeze. I will not be brought back to earth and my heart will not be silenced.
I have the power to be more than something, to be more than nothing. I, alone, have the ability to grasp the sun in my two fists and drag it down to brighten my face, cause my seeds to grow.
How can the gaping ground be all there is awaiting me?

Bone

He brushes calloused fingers over her ribs, a quiet, and strange, arousal quickening within him. He is imagining peeling away layer after layer of muscle and fat, skin and tendons. He pushes aside the offal, finding his prize, ivory buried in warm, crimson, silk. He imagines cracking her sternum and gently pulling apart her ribs so that they flex open like a hinged box. That is his prize, her ribs fluttering open like a butterfly's wings in the sun.

Her screams, as he pulls her apart, will be as beautiful as any symphonic glory dreamed by Mozart or Beethoven. He feels his arousal reaching a peak, feels it building beneath the wicked desires. He slows to a teasing thrust reveling in her moans as he denies her again and again. Soon he will make her slick with blood, prying apart the flesh and pushing into the cavity he will open.

Her hazel eyes remain closed, savoring the heft and feel of him sliding in and out of her. She arches her back, thrusting her chest up to meet his fingers as they brush little circles around her breasts. She does not feel him changing. She does not see the shift from lover to murderer. Nor does she see him take up a wicked little blade. She is lost in the moment, her hips thrusting up to meet his, taking him as far within herself as she can.

She gasps, her eyes fluttering open as she feels the knife find purchase. A rigid jolt of agony shocks her system as it tears through her outer layer. She looks up at him, his black eyes glittering like stars in the evening light. His eyes widen, like a shark's, at the smell of blood. It takes a moment for her to find her voice, a scream ripping out of her as he causes another tear in her fabric.

He revels in the music he makes. An orchestra conductor, he instructs his flutes and violins. He encourages the high notes to crashing crescendos, building them higher and higher. And, deep underneath all the soprano notes, builds his own bass. It takes a moment to realize he is screaming with her. Though his screams reverberate with joy and pleasure.

Again he slows, drawing out the sweetness of the moment. He gazes, lovingly, at what he is creating. Like a curious, and none-too-gentle, child he begins to explore his masterpiece. He pushes her apart as he continues to slide in and out of her, blood pooling just beneath her buttocks. The blood serves to lubricate each stroke as he draws closer orgasm. He invades her, looking for what he wants, not caring if she is still screaming.

He separates her breasts, causing rifts and valleys to grow ever wider between the two. He kisses her bloody sternum, shining brightly in the light of a naked bulb. He kisses her bloody bones as he bursts into her, shaking with the intensity of his little death.

Spent, he pulls away, pearlescent beads of crimson staining his lips. He looks deep into her eyes, now glazed and dull. She is still breathing, he can see her lungs moving. He smiles and kisses her mouth, staining her paling skin. She does not respond, a bubble of gleaming spittle beginning at the corner of her reddened lips.

Now begins his vivisection, the dissection of his new favorite doll, though no plaything lasts forever. He doesn't bother to tie her down, she couldn't escape now, even if he let her go. With legs still shaking, he retrieves his bolt cutters, eager to begin.

He snips a ligament, a tether line for rib to sternum, a muffled scream gurgling up from her exposed viscera. He smiles and turns her head so that the vomit leaks out, he doesn't want her to die yet. Though she will die before he is finished.

Another ligament is cut, another pitiful scream. Another and another, until he has only one left. With a jubilant cry, he frees the sternum and removes it. He lays it aside and begins the task of removing her organs.

Lovingly, he cradles each one before placing it in a sealed container. Later he will throw them against his canvases so that they splatter. He will name each piece after its respective organ, sign his name in blood and call it 'avant garde.' He will place these works of 'art' behind glass so that the smell of rot and decay is hidden.

Once all the organs have been removed he begins detaching the ribs from the backbone. As each one is removed, he places it in a bowl of cool water to remove the marrow. Later he will lightly cook the marrow until it is succulently tender and pair it with a delicate rose wine. With the marrow removed he drills randomly placed holes and fills the bone with a thick red paint. It oozes, like blood, and he hangs it above a blank canvas to drip.

Finally he begins the task of removing her other bones. He removes the marrow from each before he cleans them. He washes each one in a bleach solution until they glimmer. Smiling, he holds each one up to the light, examining and polishing.

He recreates her skeleton, after the bones are cleaned and drained, but as he sees it. He positions her arms to that her head is cradled in front of her pelvis. He paints her ribs in neon colors fanning them out as a crown for her skull. Using one femur for her backbone, he drapes her vertebrae across her hips.

Taking out his Polaroid camera he photographs his malleable work of art. He christens himself the Picasso of the macabre. He will re-paint the bones, readjust the scene to suit each new muse. He will fall in love with her over and over again, just as he destroys her every time.

Her skeletal remains are a jumble of puzzle pieces waiting to be placed. He will re-create her as he sees her in his fevered imagination. God and Eve playing in the Garden of desire and reincarnation until the end of time. No serpent, no devil, no temptation of evil as he recreates, her piece by piece, in the form of whatever Goddess he chooses. He is the creator, an artist of infinite imagination.

He will cherish her, that is, until the next muse demands his love, demands his worship. Then she will be old bones, forgotten in the abyss of memory.

Kiwi and Apple

I think often of when I was a younger woman, with no name but the ones I chose and no home but the ones I made. And I can't think of these times without thinking of Apple.

Apple was two or three years older than me, though I wouldn't swear to it. We didn't have birthdays during that time. I never knew his real name either. We shared so much, but never our names or our birthdays. And, when he disappeared, he was gone with no trace.

Apple had ruddy red hair and dark brown eyes. He stood about six feet, towering over my five feet and one inch. He had a crooked grin and one pierced ear, his "pirate look" he said. He played the guitar with such a tenderness as to make everyone around him cry.

We met on the eve of September's birth, as he put it. Always the poet, it was his way of saying we met at 11:45pm on August 31st. We met at a party thrown by a mutual friend, under a fake banana plant while a slow Sinatra song played. We met with our hands full of cheap vodka and our hearts full of search lights.

"You have the most beautiful violet eyes I've ever seen." he said, looking down his Roman nose. His eyes sparkled with alcohol and untasted sweets.

I flushed with pleasure and took a bashful sip of my drink.

Later that same night, around 3am, we stumbled into a deserted park and we played on the swing set. Under the monkey bars, with a million dying stars watching, he kissed me.

We never agreed to stay together, but we lived and loved for three or so years. On that night, we agreed to keep our names and our birthdays secret. We agreed to keep our histories and our futures a delicious treasure buried well. Sometimes the things we tried to hide bubbled up through the pain we often shared.

While we traveled, I found out that Apple's youngest sister was killed in a car accident. He found out that my mother's husband had raped me several times before I finally escaped. He knew my real name began with a Q, but we joked that it was 'quince,' like the fruit. I discovered his middle name was Adam and that he hated it.

"It breaks the flow of my name as a whole." he would say, laughing.

We decided to call each other by our favorite fruits, thus I was dubbed 'kiwi' and he was 'apple.' It helped that he had the coloring of an apple, ripe and fresh as the morning. We were unable to afford kiwis and apples most of the time, but we dreamed of them often.

We rode around the country in a turtle top van, a camping van. Nomads of the Western world. We put up a sheet behind the front seats to afford us some privacy when we slept. He pulled out the chairs and the table in the back so that there was room for us to lie on the floor.

The 'ceiling' we decorated with broken mirrors and fake stars. During the long winter nights we would snuggle up in the dark and use a flashlight, pretending we were beneath the starry sky. We were eternally chasing those stars. They defined us.

Throughout those homeless times we worked odd jobs and ate lots of peanut butter sandwiches. I worked as a waitress for three different restaurants while Apple played his guitar on the streets. At my worst, when I felt like giving up, Apple persevered. He was more reliable than the mailman. Through the rain and the snow and the blistering eat he was on a street corner, playing until his fingers bled.

His guitar was weathered, but the music it produced was uninhibited by its age and deterioration.

We discovered, amid our too brief time, that summer was when he earned the most. The pennies and the dollar bills would coat the bottom of his beat up guitar case. Sometimes someone would put a ten or a twenty in the case and we would celebrate with fruit or potato chips. One time he bought me a single, long stemmed, pink rose. I put it in a small tin box to dry. Mostly, however, we would stock up on gasoline, peanut butter and bread.

We had a fridge in the van, a tiny thing that barely held a gallon of milk. In the summer, though, it wouldn't work. It was as if the weather had to be cold before the machine itself would be cold enough to preserve food. It didn't matter, we rarely had the money for luxury items such as gallons of milk or ice cream.

The extra pennies we would put in a cracked Mason jar, copper dreams for a better future. Apple talked of leaving the country, buying a house boat and living in the middle of the ocean. I talked of fancy clothes and mouth-watering foods. We talked of so many dreams for futures we never planned on living together.

"Kiwi," he would say, rolling over to look at me. "do you want to get married someday? Have babies? What do you dream about?"

I would smile and kiss his nose, but I always stayed quiet. He knew the answers. He knew my desires better than any psychic. He could see my dreams of babies in beautiful houses with a husband and money. I dreamed of sleeping under a real roof, in a real bed. I dreamed of being in love with him, even though it would never be.

The day we parted I gave him everything I had. I gave him my soul in a tin box, smelling of dried roses and starlit kisses. I gave him my body, we sat holding each other tight, trying not to let go even as the spaces between our fingers grew longer. I gave him all the love I had to offer.

He drove off and into the sunset, heading west to some brightly painted city. There were no tears, no real goodbyes. I had already packed my few belongings. I had already kissed the dried rose petals and looked up into our homemade starry sky.

I didn't even wave goodbye as he drove off. I watched him, as though he was a brightly lit torch drifting over the horizon, and I wished him luck.

I married a man of means and we had three beautiful children. My husband found it odd when I gave our oldest son the middle name Adam and our youngest the name Quince. Our only daughter I nicknamed 'kiwi' for her bright green eyes.

I didn't see Apple, in person, again. Though my dreams brought his face to me every night. I still love him.

Under a sea of stars, we stretched out on a blanket. Apple pulled me closer and we lay in silence. It was a moment that defined the whole of our relationship.

Tête-à-tête

The words in my head won't come out.
They refuse to just slip through my pen or my fingertips.
They resist bribing and bargaining.
They evade my attempts to express or evoke or evince.
They balk at the idea of being let out.

In truth, they insist that I let them stay cozy and warm inside my head.
I refuse to let them stay hidden.
I resist the bribing and the bargaining.
I evade their attempts to hinder or hamper or hamstring my creativity.
I balk at the concept that they are something I cannot master.

Its the ultimate challenge, fighting with these words inside me.
They resist, I persist.
They refuse, I pursue.
Its a game we'll play until the end of time, but oh so worth it in the end.

The Sky is Alive

When the world began we all shared one name, one in flesh and bone. In a chasm of time we all separated, drifting like pieces of wood out into the ocean of the sky. We lost our name in the abyss of this crazy gift called time. The sky is alive, your name is a whisper in the dark and your smile a ribbon of stars. I kiss your starry lips and we have one name and body and you are my soul.

The Harlot's Blush

It is impossible to say how long they had been insane. The madness was a black pool in which they had, long, been drowning. It was toxic, yet it seemed to give them an almost ethereal loveliness. A tainted beauty enveloped their house and clung to them like so many flecks of ivory colored mud.

He had been a soldier. The blood stains of war could be seen beneath the slowly cracking facade. He lost himself somewhere in the torn jungles of a foreign land and between the legs of a beautiful, young, girl with soulless eyes. His infidelities, to both his wife and himself, often stirred the fires of madness to the point of a break. He would fling himself into a scalding tub of water and scream at God for just a moment of peace. When it had passed he would remind himself that God had died, with him, in those war torn jungles long ago.

She had been a victim of incestuous desires, forced to run from her home to escape an older brother. She had run as far as her twenty dollars and sixty-two cents could take her before she began hocking the only thing left to her. She married the first man that asked and lied, saying she was eighteen. She was his wife, a leash on the madness, already creeping in, until the war. Everything changed after that. While he was gone, she took a lover and began to drink. The scars building on her arms and torso were just to bleed, not to kill. There was no one there to care.

After another fifth of whatever alcohol she can find, she stumbles into his arms. He is shaking and whispering. He looks afraid, as if he were a wounded rabbit being hunted by something more sinister than a fox.

"God is dead. He died between that girl's legs in those forsaken jungles. What a waste. What a tragedy." He whispers into her tousled amber hair as he plants a small kiss on her pale earlobe. He is speaking nonsense, he always does after the nightmares begin. And they always begin this time of year.

~~~

The couple next door have finished moving in and are having a celebratory dinner. They invite their neighbors, though they feel uneasy around them. They can sense the wrongness beneath the calm, everyone can. At first the young wife pleads with her husband not to invite them. There is something there that makes her frightened. Proper etiquette and good manners win in the end.

The evening begins, quietly, with a few casual drinks and pleasantly neutral banter. It grows into a robust game of chess, unwitting pawns in the world of questions. It fades into a hulking paranoia, and resentment, as the guests are politely introduced to the door. Good nights and good byes are given and received as they part for the night.

~~~

The paranoia sits on his chest as he tosses and turns. He must have the beautiful young woman next door. She is perfect, so wonderfully fresh and new. He must have her. His wife doesn't matter, she doesn't even compare. The young woman next door is all that matters.

He watches her, day after day. He follows her as she walks home from the store. He memorizes her curves as he stalks her. He is waiting for the moment to take her, the moment where she will be his alone. He waits, patiently, for a year, writhing in the heat of his lust and the agony of his madness.

He takes her. Takes her just as he did a young girl in a foreign country years ago. He strings her up and rakes his hot hands over her body. He says he will take his time, enjoy her, but impatience is a cruel master. It drives the knife into her writhing body over and over. It is impotence and rage, tempered with insanity, that drives the knife. He can no longer satisfy his wife or himself. Not since that girl in the jungles where God died. He can no longer be a man.

~~~

She finds him in the shed in the fenced-in backyard. He is wallowing in blood and praying to his crucified Madonna. He is crying and has cut himself. She finds his severed manhood lying beside the young neighbor's wilting corpse. Gently, she lifts it from the dirt floor and places it in an empty firefly jar.

She goes to him then. She kneels beside him and takes his head into her lap, caressing his tangled hair. She pries the knife from his hand and twines her fingers with his. She bends over him to kiss his cheek, all the while murmuring words of comfort. She imagines a crown of thorns on his beautiful head as she slits his throat.

She ties him up beside the neighbor woman and begins to devolve into her own wickedness. Her eyes glitter with hatred and insanity, the madness a poisonous balm to her breaking heart. She hums an off-key melody as she lines up jars. They are mostly empty, but in her mind they are holding the parts of every man that harmed her.

She croons, softly, to his body as it, too, begins to wilt. She glances into his tear-bright eyes, still wide in shock at his sudden demise. She sings to him, as if he were a sleepy child. Brushing a stray wisp of hair from his face, she pats his cheek.

"A beautiful forest, a sea of green, nestled at the foot of the mountain. God stands within, laughing at the rotting demons strung amongst the autumn leaves. Their eyes cry out and ghosts weep, quietly. No mortal loves his life in that forest.

"You look so peaceful," she whispers, caressing his cooling face. His eyes seem to be screaming at her. "so calm and beautiful. You didn't have to take her when I would have given myself up to your knife. Was my blood not perfect for this exorcism? Was my heart not beating for you as the blade graced your throat?

"What a waste. What a tragedy. What a beautiful blush the harlot has upon her snowy cheek. She fell in love with you, even as you wielded your blade against her. She parted softly with your name, a hallowed prayer, upon her bloody lips. She was a rose and you stole her petals, a goddess in flesh and you freed her from imprisonment.

"What now, my husband? What now, my love?"

She sees him stir at these last words. A strangled scream escapes her mouth as he sways toward her. His hands, once secured, now reach out to choke her, to deny her breath. She claws and gnashes her teeth, sinking into his cold flesh and tearing it. She hears him howling, like a werewolf, his screams beating against the drum of her skull. All her struggle is in vain.

~~~

They found her with her own hands wrapped around her throat. Red teeth marks and torn flesh lay in abundance. The two bodies, hung from the rafters, seemed to be in a lover's pose. A bloody heart was drawn on the wall behind them.

When she was revived all that could be discerned from her garbled speech was "heaven." They led her away from the scene in a white coat, given to her by the nice man also in white.

What they could not understand she knew all too well.

She had tasted heaven in her final scene.

The Lady

We stood outside the doors, afraid to enter and afraid to leave. And though they gave under the pressure of our small hands we could not see within. It's funny how often we think about that moment, staring into the midnight blackness with just a glittery cape of stars.
She appeared then, out of the darkness and out of those stars. Her veil filled with them so that she glowed like the moon in the night sky. Upon her striped unicorn, she seemed a goddess of sorts, a soft smile of mischief gracing her porcelain face.
You kissed me then and we were all a part of this dance in the sky. She flit out of existence and into the next, leaving behind the memories of her starry veil and your strawberry flavored kiss.

The Ring of Roses

Mama's face is hot and flushed. Her once creamy complexion is now worryingly florid.

Our neighbours stay away and have taken to lighting bundles of twigs around our house to warn others. We all know that it means death is visiting. We are called "roses," my sister and I, and people cross themselves as we walk by. They ring the house, at night, with fire, hoping to cleanse the air of disease. It won't work. It never does.

Mama insists we keep posy petals in our pockets to protect us from what we cannot see. She is delirious oftentimes and can't seem to see that it is too late. Papa died last week and my sister and I dragged him out to be burned with the myriad of other dead.

We had been safe, but then Mama's face, once so clear and bright, became something else. The blisters gathered, like a vulture to carrion, around her beautiful lips and the "roses" bloomed upon her cheeks. My older sister, Mary, tends her while I chop wood for our meager fire.

The ashes. The ashes fall down, they are forever falling, and they leave nothing untouched. There is no respite to this wickedness, this plague. Only the ashes. The fires, the ashes, the stench. It never ends. All of the men in our village, those who have not died, pile the corpses in the ditches and light them. These, once human, torches blaze so brightly that day and night are indistinguishable. And the ashes fall like snow over the trees and the pastures.

Mama collapses and Mary tries to lift her. But they have both become too weak. The roses have bloomed on Mary's cheeks and it is only a matter of time before she succumbs to this terrible curse.

I place her rosary about her neck and begin to plead with the Virgin to spare what is left of my family. My cries fall on deaf ears, for, in the morning, I discover my mother dead.

There is a ring around the roses, a small ring of light to brighten the night as I bury my mother with a pocket full of posies. The ashes, the ever-present ashes, fall into my hair and my eyelashes as I struggle to lay my sister to rest.

It comes for us all, in time. From the strongest of men to the weakest of babes.

We all fall down.

Not how it feels

I wish I had the words to tell you just how lonely I've become.
I wish I could somehow explain this emptiness building in my bones.
Are there words that can conjure how this feels? Is there an expression?
A turn of phrase?

It's a lie, it's a lie. I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm alive, I should be happy.
But I keep feeling that, somehow, I've come full circle and this time
is for keeps. It's a devastating compromise and I can't help it but I'm
falling into a wormhole and I'm not sure how to escape.

I should be over the moon with excitement, with joy and happiness.
I should be happier than any girl has a right to be. I have everything
I could possibly want, but I'm not content to let things lie as they are.
I was born to soar and I'm still walking uphill.

I keep telling myself that this is a phase. I'll get over the urge to jump.
I have no worries, nothing to bring me so far down, but I'm still living
in a dream, a dream that doesn't stop when I wake. And the storms that rage
inside my head, the monsters that shatter the sky with their lightning just
keep playing inside of me. I wreak havoc on myself.

I'm happy, so the other shoe is waiting to drop and I'm holding my breath.
Everything is going well and I am terrified. I'm fine, I'm fine. It's a lie,
it's a lie. The same song keeps playing and I'm still waiting.

Honesty: To J.(C.)W.M.

Pulling my heart out on piano wire, playing out the chords that will never come. I've lost no love nor ire, just playing out my sorrow on the piano wire.

Its easy to miss you when I think I never have. Its easy to believe you were wonderful when I don't think about all you've done. This is all to say you were never the one I should've trusted, never the one I should've loved.

You exist now, simply to torment me, a rabid ghost that refuses to fade into that sweet good night. So I will sit here, writing you useless words full of useless meaning because you will never understand me and you never really knew me.

Pulling my heart out, drawing it down the spiral staircase of my ribs and down into the pit of my stomach. If I were a man, I would eat your heart to replace the one you stole, so cruelly, from me.

You weren't really who I thought you were. You were not kind, nor loving, nor caring, nor anything I would normally associate with what you were supposed to be. You were selfish and cold, rude and hateful. You were a cancerous being trapping me in the prison of my skin, cringing behind the bar of my skull.

I'm too tired to fight you any longer. Too tired to continue raging against your machinations. Too tired to wake into your reality. I know I need to let this go, stop letting you kill me with your words. The abuses, the pain, the heartbreak, the loss, I need to let it go.

Grant me this last courtesy, let me be.

All of Her: Chapter Twenty-Four

"You what?" He asks, a quizzical look on his face.

"I still love you." I say, simply. I shrug, as if to say I don't get it either.

"I thought you hated me." He says, his voice somewhat mocking and full of unrepentance.

"Of course I hate you. And I love you. I wish you were dead and I wish you were inside of me. I wish we had never met, but I wish you were still mine. I'll probably always love you, David. We were together for a long time. We were in love for a long time, or so I thought. I may never stop being mixed up when it comes to you. Part of me loathes this confusion and part of me wishes it would go on forever because it is a connection to you. All this doesn't matter though."

"Why is that?" He looks tired. Is he exhausted by his sins? Or is he just tired of having to put up with my rambling? I've lost all sense of who and what I am during this time of rebellious destruction. Will it matter if I say what needs to be said? I am suddenly full of doubts. I've done all this for nothing. He'll never understand me and I'll never understand him.

"I have to let you go." I say, all of my body slowly caving in, much like a flan left in a cupboard. I have no strength left, no more bravado. I am just a broken-hearted girl, full of unfulfilled hopes and deferred dreams. I feel like a raisin forgotten in the withering gaze of the sun.

For a moment he doesn't say anything. He just stares at me. He sucks in a deep breath and let's it puff out into the night air.

"What happens now?" he asks.

"I let you go and begin to repair my life. What's left that I haven't destroyed, that is."

"Just like that?" he asks, puzzled.

"I need a change of scenery." I say, throwing my arms out wide as if to grasp the sky. "I need time, but I am determined to let your memory fade to the point of death."

"That's morbid." he says.

"I don't know how else to say it," I cry. "I can't let you continue to exist inside of me, no matter how much I want you to. You have to be let go and for that I need the memories of you to die."

He stares at me, but I can't stand it. I have to get out of here.

"You hurt me, David, surely you can see that? Most of it I've let you do. I let you walk away without a fight, believing I was doing the right thing by you and my best friend. I let you be my entire world when I wasn't even in yours. I let you destroy me. I used you as an excuse to destroy myself. I can't do that anymore. I can't continue to love you, I can't continue to punish myself pretending I am hurting you. I haven't hurt you at all, except for maybe your nose.

"I gave you my virginity. I gave you some of the best and worst years of my life. I can't take them back from you. I can't take anything back. And there are so many things I wish I could. If I could I would take back that moment when I let you in so far that I couldn't think about anything else. I would take back all those years I spent loving you, caring for you, being with you. I wish I could give those times back to myself, maybe share some of them with Alice. Maybe I'd have tried to stop you from hurting her the way you hurt me. Maybe I'd just let her have all that time, because she clearly loves you."

"Why let her have that time?" He interrupts, confusion clouding his features. Or maybe it is the tears in my eyes that are clouding things.

"I would give it to Alice because she loves you. Because I would give anything to still be her friend, the friend that I used to know. I wish I could take those years she spent trying to ignore her feelings and give them back to her. You don't deserve her, David. You never did. You didn't deserve me either. But that isn't the point, is it? I'm just rambling now."

"Something you have always done." he points out.

"I hate you." I say. No venom, no anger. A simple statement. It is the simplicity of it that makes him stop short and look at me. Possibly looking at me for the first time. I feel the phantom of our first time making love. I feel the phantoms of him proposing, of our life together. I feel them all and I let them go, drifting under the bridge and out to open water, like candles on the water. I don't try to hold onto them. I don't try to erase them. I let them come and I let them go.

"I hated you." I say. "I can't let hating you destroy me any longer. I loved you and I am going to learn to let you go. I should've let you go long ago. The past can't be undone, but I'm not going to let you control my future. I have to let you go."

"Why bring me here? Why tell me all of this then?" He is getting angry, like a vengeful spirit fighting against the tide of banishment.

"Because you had to hear it. Because I thought it would make it easier for myself. Because I have to purge myself, I guess. You're like a drug and I'm trying to go to rehab. You're like a ghost and I'm exorcising you. I'm done, darling. And as part of my treatment, my closure, you had to hear it." I approach him, he backs up cautiously.

"Goodbye." I say, standing on my tip toes to kiss him, softly, on the mouth. I begin to walk away and he doesn't try to stop me. He doesn't try to follow me either, something I am thankful for. It's time to let him go and it is time to move on.

I don't know how long I walk, but I find myself back at my car by the book store. I lean against the car and stare at the sky for a few minutes. I no longer feel chilled. I no longer feel like I have to destroy myself. I feel a little lighter. I call Clark and ask him to come fly kites with me. I call Noah to come as well and we all congregate on the beach.

While the kites drift lazily above us, I tell Clark and Noah everything. The plans I had made, the things I have done. I leave nothing out. I conclude with David and I on the bridge. Breathless and teary, I look up at my friends and wonder what they think of me now. I used Clark and I have ignored Noah. To my surprise, and happiness, they both hug me at the same time.

"Buck up, little camper." Noah says. "The worst is over. And now that you recognize that you can't keep doing this we can begin to change it."

"We'll always be here to help you." says Clark, kissing my forehead.

We watch the sunrise over the beach, our kites waving like happy children to greet the dawn.

"I'm moving," I say, after a few quiet moments.

"Where?" asks Noah.

"Not far," I say. "just to the next town. I am hoping to try and get my job with the accounting firm back. And I need to change the scene if I'm ever going to move to the next chapter of my life."

"Are you sure you aren't just trying to run away from this whole situation?" Clark asks, gently.

"No, I'm done running. I just can't keep doing what I've been doing and I can't stay stuck in this same rut. I have to move forward and, to do that, I need to move out of here. It's too hard to stay. I'll be running into David and Alice all the time. I'll be running into old lovers all the time."

"Some of your old lovers still love you." Clark says, softly. I know deep down he still wants me, but I can't. I love him as my friend, but not as a lover or husband.

"I know," I say, cautiously. "but it isn't fair to them to have to see me all the time either. I need a change. This is the best way to do it."

Noah, having been quiet most of the conversation, stares at a kite and sighs.

"I suppose," he says. "you'll have to do what you think is best. All we can do is be supportive. I just hope you know what you're doing."

We sit silently on the beach for a time before Clark and Noah eventually head home, leaving me sitting as the sun comes up. I can't help but feel like this is symbolic of my new beginning.

I salute the new born sun before packing up my kite and going home to get some sleep. Today is my new day.

Returning to the Font

What is it about you that makes me want to write? To scream and cry and dance around like an idiot?

What is it about you that draws me in, even when I tell myself I won't waste anymore verbs or adjectives or nouns on you?

I hate you one moment and then I love you the next. I miss you and then I wish we had never met.

You wreak such havoc on me, emotionally and spiritually, sometimes physically. You make me want to laugh and write volumes of poetry and purple prose.

I want to kill you sometimes, remove the root of you from my soul. Others I wish I could kiss you or be held by you.

I'm so tired of these contradictions. Is it worth it? Will you be the muse that I need to stimulate the growth of the words in my garden? Or will you be my downfall, the weed that chokes everything else out but the hate and the tears and the unforgiveness?

I don't know anymore. I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going. I'm feeling things I keep telling myself I'm not and you are there asking how I am after so long?

Wasn't it you that said we had to stop talking? I may take the credit in some verses, but in reality it was YOU that said you needed to stop talking to me, but you follow me, haunt me, sabotage me. I don't get it. I'm so confused. Why? Why now?

I guess I'll take the chance, time heals all wounds, right? Can we rebuild? Do I want to? Why am I suddenly cold, just thinking about you and all that lies in the not-so-distant past?

God, I'm confused and you're a drug that keeps taking me higher and higher until I'm too scared to look down. I feel like I've lost track of who I am any time you are near. And you aren't near, but you are. You are as close as my skin and yet further than I can imagine. Why do I let this bother me?

And to think, the only bait you use is "how have you been?"

Paradiso

Stay awake with me through this long and frightening night.
Don't close your eyes, there will be time to sleep in the future.
I'm losing faith in you, in this, in us. I'm losing faith in
the words we say.

Do you really mean it when you say "I love you."?
Why don't you call me baby or darling? Why do I hear those
endearments from men who are not my husband? From men who
aren't you?

Why don't you seem to want to spend time with me anymore?
Who are you?
Who am I?
Have we worked so hard for so long to lose it now?

You aren't worried about my affections. I've made my loyalty clear.
I've never, purposely, betrayed your trust. I've always worked
hard to maintain this. Up until now I'd have said you were working too.
We've become lazy. It feels different than it used to.

You never use our silly words for love anymore. I don't either.
I'm miserable, darling. I want you. I want this to work, but sometimes
I think it'd be better to give it up. I'm tired of working so hard.
I'm tired of feeling like this. Do you even notice?

Have you noticed how we don't really talk anymore? Have you noticed
that when we do it is usually an argument? Have you noticed that all of
our intimacy seems to have dissipated? Have you noticed anything besides
what exists in your own world?

All is not well in our paradise. Eden is slowly crumbling from
underneath our feet and you don't seem to notice. Or is it that
you don't care? Don't close your eyes, love. Please, just stay
awake tonight. Help me figure all this out before we lose it all.

Dear Mr. President,

August 01st, 2012

Dear Mr. President,

It's a funny (as in weird) time right now, don't you think? All this insanity with your upcoming election (I am confident in your abilities as you can see) and the world is all a stage (as Shakespeare once said) set with chessmen. In the end it's kind of like that, a political checkmate with more than a chessboard at stake. Of course chess players don't usually play for keeps.

Mr. President, I am going to be honest, I'm not sure why I am writing you. My previous letter (before I was married I sent you a glittery Paris themed card) had a point. I wanted to tell you how much I supported you. I still support you (and not just because you were the first president I got to vote for). But this wasn't really going to be about that.

We're moving, not just as a country. Moving towards something ill-defined and frightening. I'm afraid, sir. Afraid that we're moving not for the better. We (the collective "we") have grown so lazy, prejudiced, paranoid and irrational. I feel like I'm trapped in the collective body of a rabid dog. I resist, but get pulled in again. It seems insane because it is.

Frankly, Mr. President, I could care less about your religious beliefs. The constitution (last I checked) said nothing about religion. I care that you have morals; compassion, honesty, etc. I don't care if you were born overseas or not (not that I believe you were, but I hear this ALL the time at work) because you were born to American citizens so it wouldn't matter anyway.

What I care about is you visiting the Colorado victims. I care about you paying the same amount of taxes I do. I care about you donating your Nobel Peace prize money. I care about you fighting for equal pay for equal work.

I care about you standing up for GLBTQ rights. I care about those things, Mr. President. I don't care if you worship Buddha or Krishna or Zeus for that matter. I do care if you use your power for good rather than "evil." Be Luke not Vader (well at the beginning Vader, you can be Vader overthrowing the Emperor. Huh, the Emperor could be Romney or big business and you could be Vader throwing them over the railing... Somehow I don't think I'll be getting a job creating your ads any time soon).

I'm sorry I ramble so, Mr. President.

I'm sorry I don't have more money. I want to donate. I want to have a chance to have dinner with you. I want to be more than one voice, but it's very hard being an adult, don't you agree?

I want so many things! I want my freedom. I want my health. I want my liberty and to pursue my happiness. I want to be a part of this so-called "Great Nation."

In truth, I just want to be happy. I want more than what I've been told I should want.

I hope I haven't bored you to tears, sir. I hope you and yours are doing well. I hope you continue the good fight, even if letters from supporters stop coming. Even if it looks bleak. There are people, like me, who can't afford Mr. Romney, sir. Especially those who think he is a good option.

Please beat him. Please continue to be the kind and wonderful human being you are. And please say a prayer (if you believe in that, I don't really anymore) for me.

In all sincerity and with great respect,
Sarai Smith
(formerly, Sarai Lillie)

Soar

I was born with a wandering soul, how is it that I have remained in one place so long?
I crave the adventure, the sights, the ephemeral of the world waiting just outside my door, how is it I am still in the same place?
I am jealous, admittedly, of those I know who get to travel or live in foreign places.
I keep waiting for these wings of mine to work, but they seem to be stuck, like me, in the same places.

Another Moment

I was eleven in 1999. My brother was nine and my sister was almost four.

I don't think it was the first year that my mother let us stay up for New Year's Eve, but it was one of the first years she let us.

Y2K was everywhere. It was the new Communist scare; the newest trend in fear. We were going to be set back from the technological age.

For me it was exciting. I have always dreamed that we would be forced back in time. It is an idea that I've tried to write about too. I love history so much that it made me think that we would start dressing like we did in the 1800's again, start speaking properly and acting like we were civilized. Much to my chagrin, that isn't what would've actually happened if technology had been decimated.

On this particular New Year's Eve, on the brink of a new millenia, my brother and I were staying up for midnight. Hannah had already been put to bed, mostly against her will as she had wanted to be a big girl and stay up too. She fell asleep shortly before ten and I carried her to our shared bedroom. Chris and I hadn't fully decided what we wanted to do.

If I recall correctly, we played some records before we decided to watch a movie.

Of course our first choice was "Much Ado About Nothing."

My mother has always been very eclectic in her tastes (which is where I got it!) and her love of classical things is what influenced me in my love for the same. Shakespeare was one of my first loves. Elvis came first, though.

Anywho, this was one of our favorite films. It still is. So we watched that. That killed some time, but not enough for midnight.

It was around this time that Ivan, a dear family friend, called to wish us Happy New Year. I told him that Mom had gone to bed with a migraine and that Chris and I were watching Shakespeare movies until midnight. He offered to come over and watch movies with us. And bring pizza.

When he arrived we decided to watch "Henry V."

Which, in case you didn't know, is a war movie. It is one of the only war movies I enjoy, because it is Shakespeare in all his glory. And Kenneth Branagh. That helps too... Because it is a war movie, that automatically means that it is bloody. As in VERY bloody. Nothing like blood and pizza on the brink of what was supposed to be the Technological Apocalypse, right?

Anyway, Ivan kept covering his eyes. He isn't fond of blood and gore. Neither am I, usually, but for this particular movie I make an exception. Did I mention Kenneth Branagh is in it? Where was I? Oh right, the movie.

So, Chris and I, being terrible children, kept teasing Ivan and telling him that the blood was gone. Of course he would peep out from between his fingers and see there was still plenty of blood on the screen and cover them back up. And we would giggle like it was the funniest thing ever. Which, at the time, it was.

I don't know why, but I've been thinking about this particular memory a lot lately. Nostalgia in my old age? Who knows.

I miss those times. I miss believing that everything was going to be fine. I miss believing that we were all going to make it somehow. I miss being closer to my sister. I miss having a family.

I still have a family, but it feels different. It has changed so much from the family it used to be. We are still Debra, Sarai, Chris and Hannah. But we are different. We are much changed from the people we used to be. Sometimes I don't think we are changed for the better.

Sometimes I miss living in that little blue trailer, in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by fields full of alfalfa and woods that held such beautiful mysteries. I miss riding my bike up and down that gravel road. I miss our dogs. I miss my knitting lessons and sneaking peeks of naughty movies while babysitting. I miss sharing a room with my baby sister, with an old and tattered poster of a Degas ballerina. I miss listening to Simon and Garfunkel on the record player. I even miss listening to old sermon tapes.

I miss the deer heads and the mounted fish. I miss fishing and playing in the snow.

I miss making homemade pizza with my mom. I miss playing chess with my brother. I miss reading to my mom.

What I miss most is what you can see in our pictures.

I miss what we used to be, when we were happy. Not when we were fighting, not when we were being abused, not when we were miserable. I miss those sparkling moments that linger in my memory where we were happy and we were a family.

The Moment

When I was young there was a lot of stress in my life (there is still a lot of stress in my life). Back then I didn't know how to deal with it (who am I kidding? I still don't know how to deal with it!). I was self-destructive because it was a way to express the turmoil inside me. I was cruel to my body because I perceived it as my enemy. I still perceive it as my enemy, sometimes. Depends on my mood of course.


My step-father's mother used to cook all the time. I don't know if she still does because I am not in contact with her really. She used to fill my plate to the brim any time I was there and I would be told to eat every bite because "there are children starving in Africa." God, I must've heard that SO many times. This, and my growing dissatisfaction with my appearance, ushered me into what I call the "bulimia stage."

I could never finish a whole plate. Ever. I would try, valiantly. But I just couldn't do it. At first I smuggled food in my napkin and excused myself to the bathroom, where I would dump it in the toilet and flush. This quickly got old. I could only carry so much in my napkin, after all.

That's where the moment happened. That moment when I realized that my aching stomach could be purged and then I'd eat more and purge later. I could eat everything, clean my plate and be free of guilt for those poor starving African children or Chinese children or whatever starving children. It wasn't truly a waste, because I did eat it. I just threw it up later.

I did this off and on for a few years. I didn't become what one would call a "full-fledged" bulimic because you can tell when I've been throwing up. The pressure is too much for my poor blood vessels and they burst when I throw up. In my face. So it looks like someone splattered my face with blood or that I suddenly have bloody freckles. This can also happen in my eyes (which I discovered when I was in high school. Rather unfortunate experience since I looked like a demon for a week or two).

Sometimes, though, when I became ridiculously stressed I would throw up to feel better. It was like purging out all the stress building up inside of me. I didn't do it often, but I always felt better. Even now I will sometimes force the point if I feel sick to my stomach. It's not hard.

The difference between now and then is that I don't need to throw up to feel better about my stress. I may still need to if I'm sick (which is the only time I'll push the proverbial envelope), but not to deal with the stress.

I tried to commit suicide at seven. Don't ask me why, because I can't remember. I just know that I was too afraid to continue living and I was so tired of everything. I overdosed on my inhaler. That wasn't the first time.

For that particular incident, I was punished. The head pastor at the church we went to told my step-father that I was in rebellion and needed discipline. I received a "spanking." For the record, I don't disagree with spankings. I am for a good spanking (both for discipline and sexual pleasure) in certain cases. I believe you should never spank a child in anger and that you should never use anything besides your hand. You feel the sting, if you use your hand. You can gauge how much pain you are delivering and I feel like this makes the difference between abuse and discipline. Personally speaking, of course. I was "spanked" with a switch by a man who enjoyed wielding it a little too much.

I became very good at lying about my overdoses. They were "accidents." Even the one time I emptied an entire inhaler, with my step-father in the room. I did this by sitting close to the speakers of our radio/tape player/record player while he was listening to a tape and waiting until it grew loud enough to cover the sound of the inhaler. I explained them all away. And they never did me any good anyway.

As I got older I realized that killing myself by inhaler was a bad idea. All it did was make me shaky. So I decided to cut my wrists.

We lived in a house by this time. A beautiful house, really. My room was the master bedroom upstairs (as my step-father changed the basement into another level of the house), complete with my own bathroom. Perfect for a teenage girl! One day, I locked myself in the bathroom, sat in front of the door and tried to drag a knife across my wrist (which I now know wouldn't actually work). I didn't even get so far as cutting, because the phone rang at that moment. Heaven only knows why I had it with me.

It was my best friend, Jo. At the time, I took that as a sign from God, because she said she didn't know why she was calling. She just suddenly had a bad feeling and called to see if something was wrong. I cried when I told her what I was trying to do. She talked me out of it and that was the end of that.

I am actually surprised that I didn't start cutting sooner than I did because of all the pent up anger (at myself, at my mother [I'm not mad at you anymore, Mom], at my father, at my step-father, at God, etc.), stress and previous suicide attempts. It just makes sense that I would cut. In the scheme of things, anyway.

The first time I cut myself on purpose, I was at church. My boyfriend (My Edward Cullens, if you will) had just broken up with me. This was a boyfriend I was keeping secret from my friends at school because he was eight years older than me and he was a convicted child molester. Actually, I was doing a poor job of keeping him a secret. I had mentioned him to a couple friends and they freaked out (rightly so, I might add). They told me it was a terrible idea and questioned my sanity (once again, rightly so).

I lied and said I had made it up. He was a hypothetical boyfriend. Well, I guess I'm admitting that he wasn't a hypothetical. He was real. And yes, you were right. It was an awful idea. I'm sorry that I lied about lying, but panic set in and I hate conflict.

It wasn't so much that he broke up with me as it is that we decided to break up until I turned eighteen. Oh yeah, I was sixteen (a week from seventeen) when we met. Seventeen when we started dating. I, foolishly, believed I loved him. He was the only guy who seemed actually interested in being with ME not my BODY. He liked me for me, or so I thought. And things went way further with him than they should've.

I was devastated when we broke up. I hid myself in the Sabbath School room (because I was a Seventh Day Adventist at the time) and took out a little pocket knife a guy friend had given me for protection. I was wearing a skirt that day, with shorts underneath. I pulled up the skirt a little and sliced at my inner thigh until I saw blood. My ex came in right after I had put the knife back in my pocket.

He asked if I was okay. I lied and said I was fine, though I had been crying. He said we were still going to be friends. A week later we were going out again.

Dating him was self-destructive on three fronts:
1. I started cutting because of it.
2. I pushed myself, sexually, even when I knew I wasn't ready for it (and I knew he was a bad idea).
3. I was only dating him to get my step-father's attention.

We dated for another two weeks before I found out he was cheating on me (had been the whole time, by the way) and I broke up with him. Again. He came over to my house and tried to seduce me back to him. He played a stupid ICP (Insane Clown Posse) song while we were in his car. We made out a little bit, but I didn't say I'd go back out with him. Despite my "love" for him, I couldn't take him back after the cheating. Also, that ICP song was INCREDIBLY stupid and un-romantic. Bad choice in seduction music, dude.

He's in prison somewhere. I think.

I cut for a time after that. I cut until I was nineteen, if memory serves. Secretly, of course. And I attempted to convince everyone that they were cat scratches. That didn't work, by the way. Everyone tried to stop me, to their credit. I finally quit because I knew I couldn't keep doing that to myself. I also knew that my ass would get kicked if I continued. Plus, right around the time I finally stopped I "ran away" from home to deal with my issues. Which also didn't work.

A few major reasons for my various amounts of self-destruction:
1. My emerging sexuality. I'm bisexual. Anyone who has read my blog knows that (or my dA journal). Anyone who knows me personally should know that. But I was very closeted at the time because of my step-father, because of my God, because of my church friends, etc. My desire to be with a woman sexually was reprehensible according to my beliefs. Another portion of this was my realization that I was not "vanilla," not just bisexually. This also seemed to clash with who I "was."

2. I was surrounded by death. A lot of my family, friends and people I knew were dying all around me. It was terrifying. And disheartening. It is rough when you have been to more funerals than you ever been to weddings or baby showers.

3. My step-father was abusive. Still is, but not to me and his ways have become more subtle. We carried on an emotionally incestuous relationship for most of my formative years. He was also physically and emotionally abusive to me and my brother. My own inability to protect my brother from him played a big role in it too.

4. I was being sexually abused. By several different people and for far longer than I should've been. Sexual abuse is usually perpetuated by someone you trust and know. My ex-boyfriend was only one perpetrator of this.

5. My step-father was emotionally distant from me. Looking back I realize that I just wanted to feel like he loved me. I know, now, that he probably never did. Which stings. I was trying so hard to get his attention. I was trying to get any kind of attention from him. Anything would've been better than nothing.

6. My mother was sick (I don't blame you anymore, Mom). A lot. My mom has a lot of health issues and sometimes she wasn't there when I really needed her. It wasn't her fault, but it pissed me off as well as depressed me. I have always had a close relationship with my mom, her being unavailable when I felt like I needed her was disheartening. Plus, her almost bleeding to death on our bathroom floor from a horrific miscarriage didn't help matters. Every time she got sick I was afraid she was going to die and I'd be alone with my brother, sister and step-father. This was combined with my desire that she die so that she wouldn't be in pain anymore, which lead to a tremendous amount of guilt. Why would I wish my mother dead when I loved her so much?

7. I was desperately lonely. I had friends, but they weren't around all the time. And I felt like I only had the one really close friend, Jo. I was also desperate for any sort of validation. Which is another reason why my step-father being so emotionally distant was destructive for me. I craved validation that I was pretty, smart, etc. That lack of validation has embedded in my brain that I'm useless and stupid so that, no matter what anyone says, I can't believe it.

8. Abandonment issues. My father and I stopped talking when I was thirteen. I sent him a letter telling him I never wanted to talk to him again, that I hated him and it was his fault my Memere was dead (she had died three years prior). His acquiescing to my demands has always felt like abandonment. Part of me wanted him to verbally slap me and continue writing me. I didn't actually hate him. I just missed my grandmother. And I was angry at her for dying, for missing so much of what was to come. I was angry that I didn't get to go to her funeral. I felt like she had abandoned me. My dad had abandoned me. My step-father was emotionally distant and my mother was physically unavailable. I just felt abandoned on all fronts.

So, what was the point of all this you may be asking? I don't know. Maybe it's going to help me realize that I don't have to be self-destructive to deal with my stress? Maybe it's a way of working out externally what has been going on inside me for years internally? Why post it?

Because it is part of what will eventually be written in the book of my life, when I am old and gray. Because it is who I was. I don't need pity, I don't need the attention. Not anymore. I just need to get it out of me, like I have always needed to get it out of me. This is a lot better than a knife, or throwing up dinner. Plus, maybe there are people out there who will read it and be able to diagnose what is going on in their lives too. Help them to see that you can come away from all that crap mostly intact.

Do I have scars? Yes. I have lots of them. I do not cover them up and I am not ashamed of them. They are what has made me, ME. I would not be Sarai if not for the scars that have built Sarai.

The Golden Man

Dear ____,

I keep telling myself that I will stop missing you, stop writing you. I tell myself that I never really loved you and you never really loved me. It doesn't make anything hurt less, it doesn't change how I feel. No matter what I do, I keep thinking about you. I miss you. I wish things had been different.

I was seventeen. I had just gotten out of a bad relationship. I had finally broken up with the Edward in my life. My home life was deteriorating. I was losing faith in God, in religion, in love. I was wilting, like a forgotten flower in a too sunny window.

And you came in to my picture. You came into the darkness and pulled me out. Or so I thought.

I had a crush on you. You were so smart, strong and funny. You were sweet and wonderful, it was easy to fall for you. I didn't even have to try. But you had a wife and I valued our friendship too much to say anything. Not that you couldn't see it written all over my face. I can say I never tried to take you from her. I am still her friend, though I still feel the shame bubbling up in my cheeks sometimes when I talk to her.

I worshiped you. I adored you. I loved you. I wrote so many poems in your honour, though I have often said I would not waste another verse on you. I say I will not waste another tear in your name.

I keep thinking back to when I told you that I had a crush on you. You said you had already known. I blushed because I couldn't believe I had been so obvious.

I told you that I wanted to have sex. You said you would ruin me for other men. I told you I wanted to be ruined. Sometimes when I think about that I know you ruined me anyway.

I can still feel your fingers tracing the soft part of my neck up to my ear and back down as I was trying to write that mythology I was creating. I had dedicated a character to you. The most beloved man created by the Gods and Goddesses of my world. I called you Zimri. How fitting that, in the Bible, Zimri is a traitor and the name itself means "my song" (Or mountain sheep, but that fits less perfectly.)

I remember how strongly I wanted to kiss you. I remember making you blush, twice, and marveling at my ability. I remember how badly I wanted you, while feeling the guilt creeping around the edges. Your wife. Your son and your daughter. Your life that I was so desperately wanting to be a part of.

I was seventeen, though, ____! You should've resisted me, should've told me no. Told me that it was inappropriate. Why didn't you? Was I Lolita, seducing you away from God and family?

I blame myself for inviting you to the prom. I blame myself for asking you to go with me. I wish I'd never gone. I wish I'd never said anything. But I wanted that experience. I wanted to experience prom, to experience a dance. It was my first dance and I was so excited to be dancing with you. I remember all the moves we created for "Beep" by the Pussycat Dolls. Sometimes, when I'm reminiscing, I play it. I dance and I think about you.

Sometimes I look at the pictures from that night. The night we stopped being friends. The night we became something more than friends, but less than lovers.

I abandoned you when you said you were leaving her. When you said you no longer believed in God. I was afraid, more than anything. And I was angry. I don't even know why I was so angry. I know I felt ashamed and betrayed for everything that happened between us. But that wasn't the reason I stopped talking to you. You had left me, now you were abandoning God and family. The whole time that I knew it could never be, even when I was hoping it would be, I prayed you would stay married. I prayed you would stay with your wife. I prayed I would forget you.

My prayers were for nothing. I still lost you.

The wound still aches every now and then. It still throbs. I still dream about you. I still miss you. I still love you. The truth of the matter is that I always will.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I had to remove you from my life. I wish I hadn't, now. But where would we be? You wouldn't have come back to me. You wouldn't have fulfilled my dream. You couldn't. We couldn't

Some days, I admit, I still want you. I am comfortable admitting that. I wouldn't do anything now, because I am happily married, but I still wonder.

I think my problem is that I wonder if you still think about me. I just want to know that you miss me too. And I don't know why I want to know that. Do you ever think about me? Do you ever miss me? Do you ever want me still? I wish you would message me. Just once, let me know that you still love me like you said you always would. Even though we still can't be. Even though I shouldn't let you back in.

Darling, I miss you, but this is another in a series of confessions I've written on my way to letting you go. I won't e-mail you. I won't message you on Facebook. I won't try, though I want to sometimes. I will eventually come to terms with this.

In the meantime, I hope you are doing well. I hope you are happy and healthy. I hope all sorts of beautiful hopes for you.

Love,
Sarai

What Dreams May Come

If I die, don't mind me, I'll be alright. Eventually.

If I keel over, don't worry at all, I'm just a little done under, a little silly, a little not sober.

If I should fall, don't bother to pick me up, just let me go. It's been too long since I looked at the sky from this angle.

If I should drop to my knees, it's not a sign of weakness, it's not a sign of giving up. It means I've decided it's time.

Time to live and let live.

Time to give in to a belief in miracles.

Time to lose my heart and my mind.

It's time to let it all go.

I am not afraid.

I embrace what dreams may come. I am open arms to the sky.

Omphalos: Chapter One: Carly

Dominic Adams and I met at a party. A New Year's party, to be specific, hosted by my best friend, Aurora.

"Carly, you have to meet this guy!" she said. Her green eyes were sparkling from more than just the champagne.

"No, Rory. Not another set-up. I want to start this new year right. Single." I sipped my drink and avoided her eyes.

"Oh come on, Carly! He's a peach! A real gentleman. And he is so handsome! Plus, he is Irish." She nudged me with her elbow and winked. "At least let me introduce you!"

"You sound so old fashioned, Rory. A 'peach'?"

"It's the perfect description of him though. He is sweet and absolutely delicious looking." She winked at me, again.

"Fine, fine. But only so you  stop pestering me about it." I sighed.

I let her drag me, by my elbow, across the room to meet this guy. This would be the fourth guy she had "introduced" me to in the past year. Ever since Andrew, my Scottish knave, deserted me, she had been bringing me any cute European guy she could find. I was beginning to get tired of it, thinking maybe Europe and I were not meant to be. All the other gents (Roderick, Ambrose, Donovan and Keegan, respectively) had been boring and incredibly self-centered. I was in no mood to meet another "gentleman."  However, though I acted differently, I was not disappointed with what I saw.

Dominic had black hair and vivid blue eyes; a Pierce Brosnan look-alike in a leather jacket. Besides his jacket he was wearing ripped blue jeans and a t-shirt that hugged the curves of his sculpted muscles. I couldn't help but gawk. He was so beautiful, so absolutely perfect. Unlike his predecessors.

"Dominic, this is my friend, Carly. Carly, this is Dom." said Rory. He took my hand in a firm, but gentle, handshake.

"Nice to meet you." he said. He had a slight Irish brogue and, though I tried to hide it, I melted a little bit. We shook hands for at least a minute, eyes locked and electricity sparking like lightning between us.

I had never believed in love at first sight. I thought it was a pretty fairy tale told to naive school girls. I was resisting the urge to call it love. Inwardly calling myself ridiculous and silly. However, as corny as it sounds, I fell for him immediately. His voice, his whole stance, everything was drawing me in. I told myself it could be a trap, but I completely ignored that voice and continued to revel in the feel of his hand on mine.

Aurora cleared her throat and gave me an "I told you so" look. We let go, leaving me feeling sheepish. He grinned, rather foolishly, and we stood awkwardly, not speaking, for a few minutes.

"Would you like to go out onto the balcony?" he asked, gesturing toward the French double doors of Aurora's apartment. I could only nod meekly, too shy to speak. He took my hand and began to lead me toward the outside. I turned, slightly, to look at Rory. She gave me a thumbs up and smiled. I turned back toward Dom and allowed him to open the door and usher me out onto the balcony.

It was chilly, snow lying like powdered sugar all over everything, and we were the only ones on the porch. It was clear outside, in spite of the snow, the moon hanging low on the horizon and a million glittering stars scattered across the darkness like fallen diamonds. A shooting star raced across the sky, just above the New York skyline. It was like a sign. This was fate, right?

"Make a wish." he whispered, coming up behind me. I didn't realize I was shivering until he wrapped his arms around my shoulders. He was so forward, so touchy-feely, so sexy. I had to remind myself to breathe. I couldn't wish for a more perfect moment.

"Did you make a wish?" I asked, looking back and up into his beautiful blue eyes.

"No need." he said, winking. I blushed, flattered and feeling a little like swooning.

"How long have you been in New York?" I asked. I was trying to start a real conversation, get to know him better before I jumped into bed with him. My brain said "This is easy" and my heart said "Skip the chit-chat." He made it very difficult to think.

"A year and a half now." he replied. "I've been in the states six years, but I've always wanted to see New York. So I hitch-hiked my way here, doing small jobs to get by. I lived in Seattle, Denver, Indianapolis, DC and finally made it here."

"Sounds interesting." I said, more than a little awestruck by his wandering. I had always wanted to back-pack across Europe and he had back-packed across America. "What are you doing for work now?"

"I've been working for Macy's six months now. Before that I worked for an art magazine in Soho. I'm also attending school, trying to get a degree of some sort."

"What did you do for the magazine?" I asked, my curiosity peaking.

"I was an arts editor. I decided what was and was not art. Apparently my opinions were no longer desired and I quit."

"What kind of degree are you wanting to get?"

"I'd love to be an art critic, or an actual artist. In the meantime however, I'm studying business."

"What made you decide to move to America?" I asked, a little timidly.

"I actually moved for my girlfriend. She got a job here and we decided to make a go of it." He looked at me, very intently, gauging my response.

I pulled away from him, slightly disgusted with myself for allowing his behaviour, knowing he had a girlfriend. I knew it had to be some sort of trap, he was too perfect to be available. At least that is what I thought at the time.

"You have a girlfriend and you act like this with strange women?" I asked, indignantly.

"We broke up. Shortly after I moved here, in fact. She had found someone better and she was never that interested in hiking."

"How old were you when you decided to move here?" I asked, trying to recover from my rudeness.

"Eighteen. She was twenty, then."

Slightly ashamed of my knee-jerk reaction without any explanation, I allowed him to pull me back to him. We were quiet for a few moments; pondering the beauty of the night sky, our feelings, our conversation. He held me closer than he had before, as if my reaction had confirmed his first impression of me. I wouldn't know until later why that was.

I forget how long we stood there, in the snow and chill. For most of it we stood quietly, staying warm by being pressed against each other. We chatted a little more, though I can't honestly remember what half of it was about. We stood there long enough that I heard the countdown to midnight begin inside Rory's apartment. He turned me towards him, pressed against his chest, and, as they said one, he kissed me.

In my head there were explosions of pleasure. In my memory of that night I will always see Cary Grant and Grace Kelley kissing with the fireworks exploding behind them. He made me weak and, if it was possible, even more attracted to him. I wanted to take him home and curl up with him like a good book. Of course, I wouldn't be reading when we curled up.

Rory opened one of the doors, interrupting our moment. I pulled away quickly, blushing furiously. He smiled, his grin quirky and slightly flustered. His hands moved in front of himself, hiding any growing evidence of attraction. I grabbed Rory's arm and steered her back inside.

"It's a little too cold out on the porch, don't you think?" She whispered, smiling wickedly.

"Hush!" I exclaimed, flustered with arousal and embarrassment. "This is your fault anyway, you are the one that introduced us!"

"I wasn't quite expecting you to move so fast. Especially not on my balcony." she replied, smiling like a Cheshire cat. She nodded toward the door and I looked over to see Dom coming back inside. He smiled at me, even as he began a conversation with another girl. I felt a surge of jealousy that he would be talking to someone else, especially after that show stopping kiss. Leaving Rory smirking, I sauntered over to Dom and put an arm around his waist, pulling him as close to me as possible.

I smiled, a feral smile, at the girl he was talking to and she quickly excused herself to the restroom. Once she was gone, I smiled again, this time sweetly.

"Would you like to escort me back to my apartment? I live in Greenwich Village and I'd rather not go alone."

He apparently liked this idea and I winked at Rory as we left, arm in arm. When we arrived at my apartment, instead of jumping into bed, we ended up staying up until eight in the morning talking about our interests. I discovered his love for art and the National Gallery in DC. He talked about how he worked for an art gallery in Belfast, when he lived in Ireland. He talked about painting and drawing. He talked about how beautiful I was and how he wanted to draw me someday.

We talked about our favorite foods. He loved peanut butter and fried banana sandwiches. I loved white chocolate and apple fudge. We sipped at rose wine and nibbled on cold crepes I had fixed for breakfast. We talked about our favorite books. Mine being 'Exquisite Corpse' and his being 'Flowers for Algernon.' We talked about our favorite movies, plays, music, pieces of art. Anything we could think of, we talked about. We even discussed politics. Whenever I disagreed with one of his points he would kiss me so that I forgot what I was saying.

We fell asleep, curled on my futon, watching "Much Ado About Nothing."

When we woke up, I fixed us some hazelnut crepes with white chocolate drizzle. We talked some more about things we enjoyed. We spent an hour playfully arguing over a game of chess we ended up forgetting about. We watched "Henry V" and discussed Shakespeare's use of insults, his creation of words and some of his sonnets. He read to me from one of my many books of sonnets. We acted as though we had been together for years, perfectly at ease and secure in this new romance.

When he finally left, he gave me his number and kissed me goodbye. We agreed to meet up again as soon as possible. I waved goodbye as his taxi drove off, clutching his number to my heart. I couldn't have imagined any meeting going better. I silently thanked Rory for her insistence.

And I started off the new year right. With a new boyfriend.