soul meets body

clavicola:

Last night around sunset M wouldn’t speak to me and when I tried to touch his arm he started to cry. I asked him to go for a walk and we skipped stones at the pond and he told me that I had hurt his feelings one morning six months ago, and still he remembered, and still it got to him. I didn’t know what to say. I just put my arm around his shoulder and kissed the tip of his nose and said that I loved him, and we rolled golf balls in the grass between us. The sky was beautiful. It’s reflection even more so. He had grown since the last time I saw him. I watched him chase a plane in the sky and I ran after him, not saying anything else— knowing he wouldn’t hear anything I was trying to say. But I caught up to him, hugged him, said nothing, and he smiled at me finally, looking me in the eye.

And Im driving home now and still it’s getting to me. How do you tell someone without words that you’ll always be there?

metaphoricwords:

Routine words
that call for a quick,
forced smile,
an automatic response
erode me.

The words are “nice”
but I don’t need them.
I don’t need sore ankles
from tripping over false smiles
scattered on the floor—

What’s left of me
can barely stand as it is.

Tell me smoething raw.
Tell me the words that come up
like bile in your mouth
and burn as you swallow them back.
Tell me something other than:
“good or “fine”.

Ask me a different question.
Does your stomach ever feel like a hollowed out pumpkin?
Do you go puddle jumping when you’re angry?
Do you analyze TV shows the way English teachers analyze novels?

How are your ankles?
Are you tired too? 

property of metaphoricwords/metaphoricheart ©

tempest-at-noon:

The glare of eyes biting at the bitter darkness. The force of the gust that, just inches from your face, could knock the life out of your lungs and set your body on fire, had it dragged you against the black chasm that, in daylight, is seen as the road. The clench of teeth, and the snarl of the engine. The possibility of death. 

Adrenaline courses through your veins, thrashing against the walls of your heart until you can feel its beat. It is exploding in pulses that throb in your temples, your neck, your wrists, your legs, cracking the ribs of its cage. But you are fierce, invincible, and nothing will let you pull your grasp from the wheel. 

Your eyes are hungry for the daylight, and you will live to see it. You will be the only one who lives to see it, on this road. But you will live to see the daylight. You will live. There is no room for doubt or uncertainty. 

You will live. Because harboring any other mindset will kill you. 

This is War. 

The field on either side of you is impartial, vacantly filled with by-standing blades of grass. The width of the war zone only stretches two lanes wide, but the perforated ribbon dividing “to” and “from” unfurls over miles and miles and you don’t know how much or how little space you have left. The area is dead, empty of civilians. They are all home, resting softly and soundly, lulled into sleep by the hush. Here, where everything should fall silent, your ears are blasting with the vociferous growls of your own engine. Her tires are blazing up against the road, howling at the heat of the friction. But the drone of fuel is steady, like a constant chomping of canine teeth that could rip flesh on first scrape. You are alone and the night is supposedly impartial, set to black to intimidate either side, because some people still think that war is a lose-lose situation. But you don’t let this get to you. You hear the eerie acceleration and pretend its your breath, let it crash against your eardrums and make you dig your nails tighter into the wheel. You’re going straight. You’re going faster. You do not blink. You’re going to win. 

You are a hero and you are going to win. 

All is easy when the coast is clear and you’re setting fire to a soulless road. But you see a light creeping up in the distance. It’s a blinding light, pure and white and heavenly, but you’ve dealt with it before. Just divert your gaze until he shuts them off. You’re strong. You know what to do. 

You hear the roar of the engine drumming in the air against the whir of your own, both so distorted behind glass windows that the battle cries seem to float on top of real sound, because you’ve been hearing the noises for so long that they are becoming the new “silent” for you. They seem distant, even though you’re right in the core of one of their drones. They are fueling your breath and your eyes and your weapon. The sounds are fueling your weapon but, from what you can tell, they are fueling the enemy, and so they are after you, too.

1000 yards. 800 yards. 500 yards. 300 yards. 50 yards. 5 yards, right in front of your damned face. Flicker the brights, flicker the brights. “Hey asshole, why don’t you turn your high-beams off?” you mutter through your teeth. And the enemy isn’t playing fair- he’s still got his brights on. You’re tempted to look straight into the blaring  eyes of his slick silver tank because you want to let him know that you are not afraid of anything. But you know people who have died that way, and you’re not going to let tenacity take another one, too. You swallow your pride and keep dropping all your weight onto the accelerator, even if it means blowing the engine.

The enemy passes you, right away, without a second thought. You keep your focus straight but through your peripheral vision, you catch a glance of an empty driver’s seat. The thought of a mechanical driver ruminates from the corner of your eyes and just when you realize you’re dealing with something bigger than human, you glance in your rearview mirror and see nothing but a blinding, white light that strikes the glass and pierces your pupils. 

Everything is white and flecked with spots. Dazed, you believe that you’re in heaven, now. That you’re dead. But you don’t remember hearing the shattering of glass or the flame of a fire erupting between crashed cars.You don’t remember the sound of dying. The feeling of dying. All you remember is looking back. 

You open your eyes after a time-wasting blink and see that the enemy- whatever it is- is about to ram itself into you.

You are not going to die. 

You swerve off the road, breaking the boundary of war. But he- it- broke the rules, and so can you. The confounded car kept speeding up and following your trails, country pride etched into the dirt with the stripes of the tire alluding to “God Bless America” in your tracks.

Is that the sound of the enemy turning around? Everyone who dreams in this situation bangs their fists into their horns, waking up with sweaty palms and the frazzled response “Oh, fuck” hanging from their tongues. 

But not you.

You hear the splash of water collapsing in on itself as the enemy sinks to the bottom of the reservoir, the one that hid itself behind the elusive stretch of untamed lawn. The battlefield was impartial, yes, but you knew its tricks well. You were a clever soldier, and you knew how survive. 

You stepped on the gas and winded down the road, making it all the way back home to the side of your lover in bed before the break of dawn.

lost-to-myself:

From my lips drips the nectar of summer
watermelon, honeysuckle, lemonade
the way you kiss is a masterpiece -
delicate skin scratched by stubble
the voices echo between the trees,
calling out molasses lullabies
the web of our intertwined fingers lays like a hammock between us
reminding me of lazy Sundays, daisy chains, and happiness
Our breaths are harmonized,
bodies braided together 
We are infinite
the Night is alive and seductive
You flick the ash from your cigarette,
then turn to look at me like I’m beautiful
And under the view of the stars,
and the warmth of your eyes,
I can almost believe it.