As It Lingers by Alex Petercuskie

You’re a man, so, by nature, you are stubborn
I am a woman, so, by nature,
Well,
I enjoy the love of a man
You endured the heaviness of life
And prized the simple pleasures in life,
You taught me about patience,
I taught you to open up,
Locked up in cells of circumstances so crass,
Just doing the little things for you was a task
Familiar strangers
Of two worlds,
I said, “Live for you”
You said, “There’s too much to do”
You taught me about not giving up,
All while we unwound
The untarnished gift of
Unconditional love

D by Jessica Nelson

She encounters with caution the shadows of the nighttime pillars
And clings to the familiarity of the earth below her stride
The moon leaves become a silvery way of knowledge
As her mind wonders to the memory of Dorothy and her Oz

“I’m scared” whispers the girl
“Afraid of more than just a sight
But terrified by the stillness of the sleeping trees”

“Her eyes” he says as she notices the vacant air around
“Her eyes that grow with her smile” he says
As she notices there are no fireflies tonight

And she cries silently within her territory
Hoping for the calming rain

Silent laughter tiptoes through her mind
And her eyes stretch in a direction
Through an obstacle of unmarked trees
Then her thoughts travel over the stream
Into the overcast and stormy heaven
Illuminated by the flicker of a distant streetlight

We are back on track my love
On a street that leads to your house and mine

“His eyes” she sings so softly
“Explain the way love will become”
And his eyes become the topic of everyday thoughts
Which in the meantime, compose a trail within her moonlit forest

Unwrapped in the mystery of night
The overcast sky above holds the possible glow of a distant fire
Shooting stars and fireflies she knows he wishes for
But she tells him it is an illusion of his unstable mind

Lost in a world of her own
She wonders back to her pillars
Dark and lonely they stand
With the confidence found in magnificence
Making her sit low but aware

For she knows that she has found her way
Through the forest onto the street
Back to the familiarity of pavement and a flickering light

Hungry by Jessica Neville

I was never hungry when you were around
or rather
I couldn’t stand being distracted
from the way my hands looked
silently tapping
and the way your eyes looked
silently laughing
at the trace of a joke left unsaid.

As the world narrowed in
the outside to my vision a blur-
only the color of your shirt
became the only color I could see
and I imagined you looked at my smile,

biting the edge of my lips,
and it was perfect
and how could I ruin it with
the unwelcome sound
of a fork against my teeth.

swing on your branches by Dustin Kyle

beneath your tree
i find pages ripped from schoolbooks,
muttering your crayon scribbles.
these whispers sugar dance my senses;
i wish i knew you then

an autumn dress sprawled out,
undergarment gray with wear-
imagining that pose
which you adorned the photograph
shuffled into my deck of postcards.

bobby pens grounded like grassbeds
shaded by cardboard models
of buildings scrapped in your mind’s sky.

chocolate coat the clovers
let dandelions yellow your nose,
the breeze kiss your shoulders.

pucker your lips
blow a bubble
filled with buttoned-downed desire
and lace trimmed thirst–
these days i tiptoe down your trail.

Before Her by Jessica Nelson

The door stands wide open
To my screened in porch.
The dishes are clean.
The clothes are washed and are now drying.
I’m about to sit down when I notice an ashtray
Overlooked and forgotten from the night before.
It tells me I had a fun time
Forgetting about our times,
And then it reminds me of one time
When we toasted to love.
So I close the door
To my screened in porch
And sit on the floor crying –
Crying for the times before
her.

The clothes are done now.
I just heard the buzzer.
I feel a single tear fall from an eye
for you,
My short lived, beautiful lover.
But my tear just tells me I had a fun time with you.
And then I just try to forget about our times.
But it still reminds me of one time
When we toasted to love.

So I guess I’ll go get the clothes now.
Hang them, fold them, and put them away.
The dishes are done now,
And I guess we are too.

You were the one I had a fun time with.
I don’t really want to forget.
I will always hold dear to me
This single tear that turns to many.
For it reminds me of that time when we toasted to
Love.

The door is closed now
To my screened in porch.
I have clean dishes and dry clothes now.
So, I sit.
Only to think of us and our short lived innocent
Love.
Remember?
It’s how we felt toward each other before
her.