The Fall

...and he had been for a light time. Bob was talking to him earlier, he could still picture that, and there was something about a tree, and then She was.

 “Is that an extra rib in your chest or are you just happy to see me?”

Crap. Did I really say that? Thank Bob, She laughed. It wasn’t like anything I’d heard from Him. Pure vibrations went through me like soft waves.

“Madam, I’m Adam.”

Seemed more appropriate but when she sees me seeing her I’m terrified she knows I’m a fraud, only created earlier in the light. Bob said this great darkness would happen before the light again, but all those dots and shapes are too fun to close your eyes to; and even when you do it’s the color of the cold ocean, and not the darkness of before. There’s one that’s a little too bright shining right at me– but I can’t move when she’s breathing into me so deeply– so I’ll think about that instead of the light.

It still feels warm on my neck where she breathed and consumed me, on my back where her tight grip tore at me. Talk about good, Bob. That was good.

Yes, I know, the thing about the tree.

Yes, I will name all the stuff tomorrow but right now my jaw needs to stretch, and I’m eating the air and I can taste the petrichor from where our sweat settled beneath us, and I want to stay in the moment we rise and fall at the same time and fill the air with the essence of us, and I want to spend the whole time, light and darkness, absorbing all of this, and also making her laugh again and again – and I can’t think what’s coming next but it feels soft like her breath on my chest and her head on my shoulder and it’s too nice not to surrender and now it’s just my breath and her hair and now

* * * *

He laid his head down in exhaustion, acquiescense, bliss. The soft green grass hugged him all over (except where she lay covering him and where his arm could feel her life-force peacefully pumping), and he was warm and unworried.

Suddenly, He thought.

He was.

Asleep.

after party poetry

rough

is the dog's

bark, is the tree,

is how i feel.

look here

you

can

see

rough is the ground i'm writing.

the reason it snowed yesterday

somewhere
secretly
a part of me
aches for that moment
when the earth goes silent
and the crisp clean smell
of flakes
 f
  l
   o
    a
   t
  i
 n
   g
down
all around you
fills the air.

night falls,
white falls,
if you don't take care
it will land in your boots or down your back.
if you don't take care
it will land and you won't treasure it.

winter, bitter and alone,
can't help but wrap its beauty in the cold.

an old poem salvaged, as it were.

a tree grows on the corner

of the avenue where we first kissed

& the street where we first loved,

in that city who is a person.

it grows and grows, 

unnoticed by

the passers-by

moving to hide 

from passing-on

(they don't notice each other either),

it feels choked by the sidewalk.

it decides to break through.

it's not about being noticed,

it's about being happy in it's own way.

and so the cement,

readytocrackfrombeingaboveabreathingisland,

bursts at it's beckon.

the tree grows and grows

and the roots grow though.

now when we walk by

will we trip

the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me...

Years have passes since we graced the playground as younger, firmer hearts.
Although our hearts were not carrying much else other than pocket money and playtime, we all had such promise. We all held such potential.
We were funny, daring comrades in a world surrounded by baking and giant trees that now seem so much smaller.
Gentle voices, napping in a curtained room, pretending we were animals of a different nature in cares made of tables and giant blankets.
We were told how we came to earth, a myth later demolished by the natural process of growing up. But it stays with us.

We all took up hobbies. Some of us were far more comfortable.
We'd try, and quit.
But we'd try harder, quit better.
Does it really seem so far away? I beg to differ.
It seems only yesterday we were children. We were naive and unstable.
But we all held to each other, to songs and rhymes and handshakes.
Even through the most difficult of times there was hope.
We are a proud, hilarious faction--some of the finest fighters this world will ever see.
We hold our heads up high and titter under hung heads of forged shame.
There was a fumbling of lips and fingers (there always are),
but we soon found our blood was better resembled in humble, deeper friendships.

And so we sail.

We have left the docks!
Our sails swell with future wind which is so strong.
We are afraid, and excited, and our bodies bubble with the unexpected.
Some of us find ourselves meeting.
Hello there, I did not expect to find you here.
A familiar face is enough. So we may continue with courage.
With a much harder faith we may continue to sail,
knowing our friends' ships are not far away.

-Steph Wardle
December '11

These days...

...I am all about losing,

left and whatdoesntquitefeel right.

wilder shores of love (a title in flux)

in bed with a backache,

competitively procrastinating.

man my back hurts,

man i don't want to work.

this poem

should've been called

what else is new.