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He jumped from the cliff and his dark green flannel shirt whipped around his eyes because he raised his arms and it looked like a cape, or bat’s wings. I could not see his eyes from where I was standing on the rocks nearby, a little ways away, a little across the water, but I knew they would be open. They were not green but they always felt green to me. They used to feel deep honey brown but they turned shallow green sometime when I wasn’t paying attention. He jumped and I stood and I watched and I raised my left eyebrow curiously because I wondered why, and I heard a rustling behind me in the bushes and I turned away from him and missed the end of his descent. I saw sandy gold strands of hair and new brown eyes peep through the green leaves and this stranger smiled and I saw my reflection in his teeth and he winked and I saw the clouds reflected in his eyes and I forgot about the scene across the water and the boy flying through the air.

Posted By Kay On 12.09.2010 @ 1:46 pm

I hit the nail and it split my house in half. Now I have no home. I took the nail and built another house with it. Now I have a new home. Wasn’t that clever?

Posted By Kay On 12.04.2010 @ 11:54 am

He smiles and lifts his cup and the light on the glass makes fragments of stars shine on his face and his hands. He smiles and I smile and i raise up mine, too. “Cheers,” and i tilt back my head and pour the coppery liquid down my throat. He smiles again and i notice the shine to his teeth. I notice how he looks like stone as he sighs and leans his head against the wall. His legs are sprawled out lazily in front of him and he reaches for me. He pulls me down and lets me rest my head on his neck. He is warm and comfortable. I am somewhere else for a minute but somehow still right here. I close my eyes because i know the confusion is coming and i hope to hell that the alcohol hits my system before the overwhelming sadness does.

Posted By Kay On 11.30.2010 @ 6:52 am

I bite my lip and feel his eyes on me as my skin begins to burn bright, bright red. His hands are blue and purple and white and i feel them cold and warm all at once as he presses his fingers to that space at the base of my skull on the back of my neck. I shiver even though i am wearing a million sweaters. I am overwhelmed with desire. I want to peel the denim from my thighs and feel the feverish flurry of lips against my collarbone. I am burning, shining white and gold. I want to twist my fingers through his copper hair and bring our foreheads together. I am an animal.

Posted By Kay On 11.30.2010 @ 6:20 am

diagram of what? I had to make a diagram in science once. It sucked. I hate diagrams. They suck. They take so long, and really what’s the point?

Posted By Kay On 11.28.2010 @ 5:14 pm

They came down like crazy! It was hard to see across the street. We were waiting for family to come for the holiday and it was unnerving. Our neighbors had their family near and we couldn’t wait for ours.

Posted By Kay On 11.23.2010 @ 6:14 am

I like habit. Ritual may be boring, but life is structured around it. It needs to be. Being a camp counselor taught me that. My kids needed routine, and my knowledge of that need exacerbated my need for it. in the beginning of this semester, i was going crazy from lack of routine. Now I’m good.

Posted By Kay On 11.21.2010 @ 10:06 pm

it may not be anything when we get older, some part of technology from the past, things we did away with after we finished playing, but we always started off smart and stayed with the more prestigious, brilliant, handsome Mr. Science, who knew

Posted By Kay On 11.20.2010 @ 10:40 am

She said it killed her when she kissed him but i still see her breathing so I think that was a lie. She said I’m sorry a million times but she ran off when I tried to talk so i think that was a lie, too. She said we’re bestfriends, and she said I’ll never speak to him again, but I saw his handprint on her spine and I saw the lines of his face on her cheeks and I saw his smile reflected in her eyes so I knew that was a lie. I remember when his freckles were imprinted on my hands and she wouldn’t show me hers so I knew she had him hiding somewhere. They said I Love You to me but they ran away together so I guess they were both liars.

Posted By Kay On 11.18.2010 @ 12:21 pm

He ducks behind the convenience store into where there’s light and he fumbles through his pocket for his brand new pack of Camel Filters. He pulls one out and sticks it in between his lips and closes his eyes as he lights it up and pulls the familiar thickness into his lungs. It is harsh and warm and unforgiving, just the way he likes it. He has not had one in months, but he can’t get this image out of his mind of her car driving away, headlights illuminating his cheekbones and burning silhouettes into his eyes, big round yellow mocking silhouettes. He remembers brushing her hair behind her ear and he remembers the way her sundress clung to her hips and the way the sun would shine on her forehead and light up her collarbone in the most inviting way. The last thing she said to him was Fuck You. He takes another drag off his cigarette and closes his eyes again.

Posted By Kay On 11.17.2010 @ 8:19 pm

She sits upstairs on her stool and paints pretty pictures of pretty fields at sunset. Her daddy screams from downstairs and throws the dishes up against the door and she smiles in her room and paints the sun with swirls of red and yellow, like warmth. She smiles pale pink cotton candy lips and downstairs mommy pulls her hair from her head and ducks behind the kitchen counter, like a snowball fight for grown-ups they throw ceramic that crash like cymbals on the ceiling. She dips her brush in green and purple, paints the grass all lush and soft beneath her imaginary feet. She paints a cowboy on a horse of dappled gray and dives headfirst into the mess of colors, thinking take me from here, please, and she imagines riding off into the wind. In the living room the house is a clamor of clanking limbs and clashing words and upstairs she lies on the polished wood covered in a mess of color, still lonely with a smudged canvas and a broken stool and acrylic in her hair.

Posted By Kay On 11.16.2010 @ 12:30 pm

There’s something in your walk and I don’t know what it is but I know that tendrils of roots and leaves are wrapped around my ankles keeping me from running from you. You smile and it’s crooked and ever so inviting and my hands are wrapped around your neck and it’s warm and electric. I want to press my lips to the skin around your arteries and feel the pulsing flow of life. I want to tangle my fingers in your hair and feel you lift me up by the waist and lay me down on the soft leaves in the springtime. I want to kiss your eyelids and feel them milky smooth and fluttering like butterflies. I want to breathe you in and feel you melt into my spine.

Posted By Kay On 11.16.2010 @ 6:58 am

The smoke crept from my mouth in tendrils and I felt it coming to wrap around my neck like your hands around my chin. You looked at me and I think I saw someone else because I felt things I didn’t know I could feel for a stranger. But his eyes looked at me through your lashes and you smiled and he smiled through your teeth and you kissed me and I heard his voice loud in my ears as I touched my tongue to yours. You tasted like him and it made me want you. I’d say I’m sorry but you didn’t seem to mind.

Posted By Kay On 11.16.2010 @ 6:50 am

He said look up at the stars because they’re all you can ever be certain of, and i said what about you? He looked at me and smiled and i saw stars in his eyes and i believed he meant those, too. He said listen to that music blaring from your speakers because it’s the only truth there is, and i said what about you? He looked at me and smiled and i heard music from his lips and i believed he meant that, too. And he pulled me in closer and the flannel was soft against my cheek and his scent was warm in my nose and i closed my eyes and imagined all of our tomorrows. I said I love you and he said nothing and i said, what about you?

Posted By Kay On 11.11.2010 @ 12:17 pm

just think of us helping ourselves to more bread and wine till the night ends up with a sunrise and you’re too tired to hold yourself up tripping along the walls, I can’t carry you with me, I can’t help you at all, with your superficial need to beat all the traffic, the roaring chaos of the morning after a wonderful night, where we helped ourselves, too many times

Posted By Kay On 11.10.2010 @ 3:31 pm

I hear you spend your days in sweatpants watching the turned-off television screen. I bet you can see the pictures behind your eyes and they’re a thousand times more beautiful than anything you’d see if you pressed the power button on the remote control. You always did have that creative eye. I hear you’re hibernating in a cave in Alaska, like a bear whose all worn out and hiding from the cold, from the changing season, from the world. I bet the dreams in your head are twisted tangles of colors and soundless words, wordless melodies caressing your brain more breathtaking than anything the rest of us could ever even hope to witness. I hear you’re not coming back, and I hear you are coming back, and sometimes I hear that you’ve flown to the moon, and I think perhaps I believe that one the most; I never imagined gravity would have much luck trying to keep you from soaring.

Posted By Kay On 11.09.2010 @ 7:42 am

We never fought until the end. I guess that’s now i knew it was the end, when you still made my hands burn but not in the good way anymore. Well, sometimes in the good way. Your eyes did that thing they do when you’re fighting against something in your head. I know your secrets. I know who you’re fighting in there. I knew it was over when we stopped arguing and we stopped flailing and my hands stopped burning and it got all quiet. That’s when i felt my heart breaking, i guess. I didn’t even know i could feel that much stuff. Now you’re gone. I still know your secrets.

Posted By Kay On 11.04.2010 @ 12:38 pm

You are the greatest actor of our generation. Tell me, where did you learn to get the muscle movements just right? Twitch your eye at just the right moment and curl your lips up in just that way you do. It used to send a tingle down my spine and you fooled even me, and i have always thought of myself as foolproof. I am smiling and applauding for you in my head because you deserve a standing ovation after that performance.

Posted By Kay On 11.02.2010 @ 7:36 am

They were stars but they felt like eyes and streetlights that felt like spotlights. I looked at you and my eyes were wide and i knew all the constellations were staring and i wanted them to blink out, look away, so i could wander off into the dark in peace. “I’m sorry. I don’t want this. It’s not you.” And i smiled my stage smile and my indifference was perfectly feigned. And the stars and planets winked and the moon smiled and everyone clapped for the performance of a lifetime.

Posted By Kay On 11.02.2010 @ 6:39 am

His teeth glisten under the glow of the streetlight and I’ve never noticed how nice his smile I’d before today. I am a little intoxicated and he is smiling and I know we are just best friends but I also know that I have heard that before. He laughs and I laugh because he is laughing and he is demonstrating something and he playfully wraps his hand around my neck. I am not attracted to him but for a moment my eyes roll back and he is someone else and I want to touch so I shake my head and say let’s go inside. His teeth glisten under the streetlight and I am intoxicated and we link arms and walk away.

Posted By Kay On 11.01.2010 @ 1:13 pm

We always used to joke you had fangs and I guess I made fun of you for it but really I thought all of you was beautiful. You smiled and your lips stretched over your teeth and it’s been a few years but I still smile when I think about your smile. I thought I saw you yesterday for the first time since you left. I clawed at the door trying to get to you and I broke all my fingernails and then by the time I got it open you had gone again. I woke up this morning with mangled hands and an empty space next to me where I’d hoped you’d be today.

Posted By Kay On 10.31.2010 @ 2:02 pm

He sank his teeth in me many years ago but sometimes I still feel a ghost of the pressure on my neck. I think last night was one of those nights because I heard his name and tried to follow him even though it’s been so long since i’ve been welcome to follow him anywhere. He smiled in my head and exhaled smoke from his lips and I remembered and I guess that’s where I went wrong; because my memories are not how things are anymore.

Posted By Kay On 10.31.2010 @ 11:47 am

He said let’s sail around the world and breathe the sky. He said let’s fall asleep intertwined and touch our lips together. He said you’re beautiful and he said the earth was mine and I know he meant it because his eyes were bright and his smile was electric. I kissed him on both cheekbones because I wanted to and it was warm on my lips and rough and I knew this couldn’t last but I had never wanted anything to last like I wanted this. He said I don’t want you anymore and I knew he meant it because his eyes were sad and his face was carved in stone.

Posted By Kay On 10.29.2010 @ 7:40 pm

She knew he was watching so she smiled coyly at the ground and looked up through her eyelashes. She could feel his heartbeat quickening from across the room, it thudded in her ears and her eyebrows raised slightly, widening her eyes in a way she knew would only add to the effect. This was a game she was more than familiar with. She loved him because his skin was warm and because the muscles in his shoulderblades moved when he walked and because he was a stranger, a blank canvass on which to project whatever personality she wanted.

Posted By Kay On 10.27.2010 @ 10:50 pm

She could hear the siren coming from somewhere near her occipital lobe trying to warn her against going down this road again. He smiles with this teeth and makes his eyes look warm and inviting and she forgets about his bad habits. ”I love you,” he says quietly, like he means it, and despite the alarm still blaring in her head she chooses to believe him. Just like she believed the others.

Posted By Kay On 10.27.2010 @ 11:52 am

I lean my head back and embrace the faint white glow of the moon as it presses against my cheek. I am a campfire left overnight, faintly and quietly smoldering. My eyes are closed and I can feel you behind me even before I hear your muffled footsteps through the dewy grass. You brush my hair behind my shoulder and I have goosebumps. We are maybe still strangers and that is maybe why I half love you. We are calm and warm and curious; itching for contact.

Posted By Kay On 10.26.2010 @ 11:03 pm

She lies in the grass with the moon casting an ethereal glow on the hair fanned about her. He leans down and whispers on her ear that she’s beautiful and she smiles because she has heard it before but it’s not like it’s ever been enough to keep anyone around. She kisses him anyways because he is handsome and soft and rough and she is only human.

Posted By Kay On 10.26.2010 @ 12:08 pm

I dreamed you fell from my head and landed in the sea while i watched you drown from the shore. I ate candy and sat with my head in a half-stranger’s lap and you explored the underwater caverns with the manta rays and the sea urchins. He kissed me on the cheek and your nose filled with saltwater and i watched my breath mist on his glasses as you slowly lost yourself. I tasted him on my lips mixed with the sugary sweetness of the candy i ate and all i could think about was “My, how delicious.”

Posted By Kay On 10.26.2010 @ 7:52 am

I used to spend my week­ends by the shore until i stopped see­ing your face in the ocean. Now i spend my week­ends on my back while the boys write on my stom­ach in magic marker. They are vibrant in color and they wash off in the sink later, which is the best part. I let you get under my skin and leave your imprint on me and when you left i promised myself i’d never let any­one come near me with a per­ma­nent marker ever again.

Posted By Kay On 10.26.2010 @ 6:28 am

I used to spend my weekends by the shore until i stopped seeing your face in the ocean. Now i spend my weekends on my back while the boys write on my stomach in permanent marker. They are vibrant in color and they wash off in the sink later, which is the best part. I let you get under my skin and leave your imprint on me and when you left i promised myself i’d never let anyone come near me with a permanent marker ever again.

Posted By Kay On 10.25.2010 @ 3:38 pm