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Note: Across the next few days I’ll be adding selected December pieces to the Official Material section. Also, new bits of poetry and prose will be earned and posted in the coming cooling January days. 

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Innocence

 

There was something vile

something of failure

unfair

in the air

unvivid

masked:

She took a step towards him

slowly

as she’s seen lovers move in films

patiently timing her steps

toes barely clinging to the floor

like shifting paradigms of history

as it accumulates in sad, but obvious disguises:

a crying child

a nursing infant

then suddenly too old to share her bed with the safety of stuffed toys

plush bears with missing whiskers hidden in the closet tomb

amidst a growing temperance and arching shoes

then there’s a first lipstick puckered before the altar of a mirror

punctured ears for little earrings

dressing up in mama’s clothes

dad’s first worry about a boy’s enthusiastic mention

her first kiss

the first time that she disrobed

the first time that she felt someone inside her

the first time that she pretended it was love

a chipper pupil of old books

a courter of doomed affairs searching for her Heathcliff

for her own tragic romance and identifying mistakes

a learning curve to bring her here

another to be lost amid unwanted embrace

a predicted disenchantment

a smiling scorn for the internalized and stowed inevitable glitch  

the slow walk choreographed

many times created, recreated to look true

a pout; a fearful glow to glower

a stirring in the stomach

a passing ecstasy

a joint he rolled too tightly afterwards

a clumsy haste in uncooled sweat

some tender promises and awkward pecks upon her neck

She stands before him

mighty, unwavering, content by the repetition

some subtle change is all there is

and it’s not as promised

because before and after us they wish the same

too soon to realize this movement wants no praise

no high-minded affections

no outstretched highways and no lovesongs

only sincere vulnerability

which is not as durable as they make it out to be

a promise

Of something

anything  

that is

that ever will be

There was something wonderful

there was once

lost so unintentionally, with such purity

and ease

and taste

She walks to him

She walks to them

again

anew

replaced

so patient in her steps

with few

and few remaining

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