Green wallpaper peeled off the edge between wall and windowpane. Recklessly suspended in the air, pausing for breath. I lay strapped to my new bed; I entered by stretcher. They wheeled me in. Wired, I did not sleep. When do waves that roll in with the tide decide to turn back toward deep ocean? When you hear the sirens sound off from the depths of a volcano. Molten lava drops and destroys as it makes its way east. Eruptions from ash into more ash, until it is time to begin again.
Author: heartbreakandcigarettes
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Ice Skating at Christmastime
Wind chimes dangle on a
front porch. We walked down
to the Commons, where people laced
their skates in celebration of
a fresh snow. Frozen fish
beneath the rocky surface
of a shallow pond. The darkness
of midnight. The ending
of all things.
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Magnolias at the Public Garden
A painting of ancient animals curled up in a museum. We met in a red dress. Pillars welcomed us through the entryway. The northern pond overflowed with ducks. Where does one look when searching for oneself? In the dank spaces between salt, sea water, and earth.
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DNA
A buttery blue Buick LeSabre rusted in the driveway beside the powdery, cornflower house.
Where we once chained the dog to the garage.
Where wild things turned rotten.
Where scars hardened and calcified into bone.
Where seasons steadily bled down the legs of time.
Where I bled, face cut open.
The site of family barbecues and of family emergencies.
Of busted lip and toil and homework at the dining room table.
Nightmares on the sofa.
A family tree full of ghosts.
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Recovery
A glass of espresso rests on an onyx desk. The air is filled with acid and heat. You asked me to make it, to serve it to you. Anything worth loving is worth doing first. Creamy steam slips through the crack between the slabs of shower doors. A podcast blasts from the speaker you sat on bathroom marble. Hotel staff impatiently tap at the suite door. Burgundy-stained wine glasses scattered about symmetrical nightstands remind us that it was our door – for the night. Our once ironed, oyster-clean bed sheets. Our Chicago skyline glistening in the distance. Sparkles off skyscraper windows whisper it’s time to go home. You made time. We made time. I look you in the face and say, “I miss you.” I already miss the hit. We needed our fix. Once in a supermoon. Like drugs, like addicts. We wait in agony, until we can get up again, with sealed lips. What space in silence lasts so long, crossing terrain and time zones. I shake my head, willing you to answer me back. When I open my eyes, I’m on fire again.
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Sailboats on the Charles
Neon and white
boats flash across crystal
river surface. Like vacation
souvenirs. Sails serve
as flags waving away
summer’s end. A chill collapses
through with the current, waves
lapping up to the planks. What is
summer’s loss is gained
by the turns of autumn.
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Legends
Mama always said the illness smeared its oily sable ink down our whole entire family tree and did not stop or skip a single branch. Mixing brown cracks with sludge makes minds break, makes minds fracture into jagged chunks. Resentment turns to clarity turns to experience. The wise one knows no one can resist its slippery grip. I will not be the first or the last. What saves sanity and sobriety eludes us all. Brings fist fights, inpatient hospital stays, both the pipe and the bottle. Onyx tracks seep down bark, trunks, and trickles down through the roots.
-
Whenever
Like standing at
a train station with
a broken screen, at
midnight, with no sign
of the next car coming, I
anxiously wait.
For a smoke
signal, or a smoke
screen, or for
anything.
I am desperate
for your notice. For
a pink slip, or
an eviction. Or
an invitation.
A warning,
a hint,
an omen.
Anxious, I
wait.
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Our Ghosts
Your liar’s smile,
a brief hesitation,
an admission of guilt.
We sit across the picnic
table plank, plotting, silently.
As silent as the smoke
raises from Big Sur earth,
mystical swirling toward blackness
from the campfire.
A smoldering,
burning brush,
struck by flint.
A spark as silent as the secrets
that float around us,
we surround ourselves
with our ghosts.
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Domino
Sometimes, I sit in
my room, contented, like
a black dot on
a singular domino, surrounded
by ivory space, a diamond
speck on an elephant’s
tusk, a rare
delicacy, a forgotten
prize.
heartbreak and cigarettes 