FUN FACT: Did you know that Roman Centurions pierced their nipples so they could attach their cape to them? You know what that means..

doctordonna:

(via wanted-to-be-an-aeroplane)

A Little Piece of Heaven

There are places on earth where heaven has descended. I can see it; in patches.

Spirits fly across rain-soaked fields, weaving in between the living children that splash through the soggy carpet of sod. In the little clearing, I watch the ghosts as they rejoice in each raindrop joining the vast puddle the earth has become. Laughter echoes between the trees that surround the clearing, some as new as light and others as old as darkness.

They dance under the open clouds, frolicking in wild circles, brushing the cheeks of the living as they sprint over the sweet wet grass. All these souls are as near to me as the dripping dandelions at my feet and the sleeping moths tucked safe under the bark of the trees at my side. As I stare at the collision of heaven and earth, I feel a soft, inexplicably fragrant warmth take hold of me. Arms wrapped around me. The caring essence of someone I once knew. Souls are almost indistinguishble from one another.

They are just free.

notinrivers:

I am not going to fall in love with you,
not again.
When we drink and strut
with your arm hooked
into mine.

I will not fall in love with you,
not again.
We have tried this before-
when you told me your
love was not ready
for someone to break you
in half.

I cannot fall in love with…

These Souls

These souls

Have loved

A Thousand times

And lost a thousand more

They’re old as ice

And new as air

With throbbing hearts and

Fickle minds and

Every trait

They’ve

Once embodied

Which caputures

In pure form

Humanity.

These souls are so real

That you could dip your hands

Into them

Like a basket full of

Silken scarves

And lift them gently

To brush across your cheek.

You could put them

In a wide glass jar

And watch them swim

Like polliwogs

Under shadow casting branches

Of brookside trees

In the dense wet heat of a childhood summer.

These souls have laughed

Have wept

Have screamed

With all the living

They have done.

These souls are yours

As they are mine

These souls are all we’ve ever known.

Trumpets Prohibited

Words spill like

Chocolate drops

Like unrefined, thoughtless

Utterances from my lips

When I have nothing to say

When correlation is as irrelevant

As the words playing on my tongue

Are to your sad sililoquy

My silence is not a metaphor

Is not a lack

Is not a warning

It is absorption.

I am a sponge.

Let me be your transport

Your getaway car

Your one-way train ticket

That the conductor might forget to punch

So you could ride that trail of steam

Through the valleys again

Because I want to take you to places

You thought you couldn’t go

You were sure did not exist

In such bounty

And in such beauty.

My silence is a forest path

Hold my hand

Brush my hair from my face,

Tenderly, wordlessly as I do

And follow me

Relentlessly

Unquestioningly

Because I need to show you a meadow

Of streaming golden sunlight

Where you too, will stand in awed silence

And then you might understand

That what is disconcerting

Is actually quietly thoughtful

And playful when you want it

And serious when you need it

And observant when it is you who blocks your own path

Like the unpredictable movements of

Brightly dappled sunlight.

Mute swans are all the more attractive.

Mute swans do not hiss.

Voicelessness is a frequent behavior

In my world of speed and madness

It is underappreciated

And misunderstood

Which moves me to such agitation

That I might just mispeak

If I were to echo

Anything but speechless silence.

Island

Like tracing the lines of dust along an old patient bookshelf, she brushed her fingertips over the knots of his spine in the easy summer sun. It glinted off his dark reddish skin jealously, realizing that he was far brighter than the simple mid-morning bath of light it shed upon him.

The palms swayed overhead and tiny crabs emerged from their burrrows to battle each other with their minutely perilous purple claws, unconcerned about the pair of castaways close by.

“I love you,” she said, reminding him.

“And you I love,” he mumbled back into the tattered blanket that was spread over the dunes.

“Mmm,” she added absentminedly as her hand stole along the familiar path of his shoulder blade, the smooth plane like ceramic in comparision to her dull, somewhat knobby fingers, “I just want to make sure you know.”

“It’s the one thing I’m sure I know, Desiree,” he pointed out, “I don’t know anything about you.”

“That makes two of us, Kiran,” Des observed wistfully. And then Kiran sighed like he always did, wishing he could fill in the blanks that Des had never worried over since she’d lost all memories from before the storm that changed their lives.

“Don’t sigh,” she said, lying down beside him and worming her way into his arms.

“Why can’t I sigh?”

“Because it makes me sad. Because you’re sad. We don’t have to be sad right?”

Gazing into her Carribean blue eyes, there was no way to avoid the question. She gazed at him with such intensity that he could only answer, “Right.”

Which led Des to close her eyes and kiss him gently, her fingers still swirling in endless circles over the surface of his back.

“How long have we been here Desiree?” Kiran asked quietly.

“Three hundred and ninety-two days,” Des replied; her memory since she had awoken on the shore of the island after the shipwreck was perfectly intact.

Kiran sighed again, but differently. A smile played at the corners of his mouth before he kissed Des back more fiercely, only pulling away briefly to reply, “Then I should hope for three hundred and ninety-two more.”

Theories Contrived at the Dinner Table

The following is a real actual conversation which took place at my real actual dinner table with these real actual phrases spoken by my real actual family. It was originally published on Ficlets at 10:27PM on Sunday, December 14, 2008. The I published it to Protagonize on June 7, 2009. Now I am sharing it here. The one called “Matt” is supposedly my brother. A fact I am not, however, always sure I believe.

Dad: See, the atmosphere is like a lid.

Matt: Don’t you mean it’s like a dome? Like two domes, like a sphere?

Dad: Yes. Whatever—

Me: No no no, Matthew. See, the atmosphere is like a lid. Like a little hat on top of the earth! A little… a little buret!

Dad: A little buret.

Mom: Does it have a pom pom?

Me: Would you like for it to have a pom pom?

Mom: Well, I think the moon should be the pom pom.

Me: Yes! Yes, the moon is the pom pom on the little buret of the earth.

Dad: So global warming is like a buret?

Me: Exactly! No! Like a sphere! Like two burets!

Matt: Like a sphere… two burets!

Me: The earth must be awfully confused because he’s wearing two burets…

Mom: One on either side!

Me: Yes! Yes! And when the thermal vent opens, it the world peeking out between his two burets because he’s too hot!

Mom: He’s wondering why he’s wearing two burets.

Me: Poor confused earth.

Mom: So, that’s how global warming is like a buret.

Me: Two burets.

Unreal

Nighttime is beautiful. The darkness is quiet and unsuspecting; willing to cloak us and hide our flaws.

But in the still willowy light of morning that shines in crystallized rays through the half-curtained window, there is nothing more beautiful than the sight of your face only half a pillow away from mine.

The thick amber cast that is lent to the room by early dawn turns your flesh tawny. I have to control the desire to reach out and brush my fingers over that beautiful sun soaked skin because I don’t want to wake you, sleeping so contently as you are. I just want to absorb you. The very essence of being together, being so close, being worlds away from any place we’ve ever known. It’s breathtaking.

Just across the sheets you lie, breathing slowly, heartbeat even. Your features are peaceful and soft in sleep, aside from a faint smile that flickers into them momentarily when I whisper your name.

Then your eyes flutter open, and I am struck, as always, by the penetrating irises that stare back at me, like two circles of moist viridian moss in some undiscovered rainforest. A low murmur in your throat. You are only half awake as your arm snakes under the blankets and pulls me close. The way you tuck yourself around me is like no other earthly feeling.

Having your body flush with mine, as close as your heart gently beating, I can think of no place I’d rather be. In your embrace I fade from consciousness, resuming dreams that are sweet because you wished them so, but not nearly as brilliant as my golden hued piece of ethereal reality.

Like Home

I miss you like the earth of my heartland.

My homeland.

The land I’ll feel from the soles

of my feet

to the beat of my heart

when I find it at last.

I don’t know home yet.

So what I’m saying is I

miss you like something I’ve never had.

I miss you like no one,

Nothing,

I’ve ever missed before.

And I’d dream you to reality

if you were only of my mind

because you seem to good to be true;

I, Pygmalion, and you, this untouchable

unreachable piece of artwork.

But here you are

and you wonder why

I’m convinced I’m crazy.

Allow me to continue,

I miss you

like water in the desert,

and land in the ocean,

and birds in cages,

and paintings in darkness.

And with fangs

the whitest gleam of

killer iridescence—

I miss you

as a vampire

would miss his reflection

long after his human life has ceased

and the taste of iron

loiters on his palette,

regretfully.

I…

just miss you.

But in case you haven’t

gotten the message,

I’ll put it into a phrase

that conveys

the depth of these feelings I

want to restate

that you leaving

does cause me

an excruciating pain.

Right here on this map of my body,

deep in my heartland.

Missing you is wearing on me.

Wearing on me

your clothes

with the smell of your soap

and the scent of you skin

that I know is there—

the reason I

don’t want to wash you away

and I ask you to stay

just a little longer,

linger,

leave your aroma

upon me, on me,

deeper than skin.

It’s intoxicating.

Nectar to bees and

rain to trees

and nothing but pleas

when you go

and you have to go

and I can’t let you go

but I let go

and you’re gone.

It’s as hard

as a barrier of carven ivory.

When it comes time to miss you,

I’d never want you to leave unsmiling.

Even if the dam bursts

when the car disappears

and I cry on the lawn

uncontrollable tears.

What I want is the darkness

to stop you from leaving

to keep you from sight

to hasten your breathing.

What I want is a joint ownership

of the night

and no rules and no boundaries

and no time,

but no dice.

You’ve gone missing again

and already

I miss you.

I miss you like air.

I miss you like home.