Red flesh, sweet fruit, fresh blood.

Dead man, low patch, disarmed guard.

Expensive jewels, garden tools, steel arm.

Broken glass, pulsing light, a bit tart.

Picked like berries, burlap sack, loud alarm.

They’re running my way, fleeing the chase, their pounding hearts.

Squeezed juice, bullets shoot, flavors sharp.

Activate infrared, mapped threats, pattern of achenes.

Finalize scan, ripe ...

Rain drags at your eyes

A stream of dejection trickles down

Swells roll across your lashes

Your languid form succumbs to their flow

With vision blurred like cloudy skies

The sun’s light no longer reaches

Those rays of comfort, that warm caress

The absence chills.

Little hurts, once bareable,

Are disproportionately intensified in the gelid weather...

1: “Your reliability rivals that of weather forecasts in Springtime. Hard to predict when you’ll suddenly rain on the parade.”

2: “You’re one to talk, with a mood like pollen allergies- mild one day, catastrophic the next, and somehow my problem to manage.”

1: “You say you changed, but you emulate a groundhog on Groundhog Day- see your own shadow and burrow back in, still not ready for growth.” ...

1: “You speak with all the effort of a fork scooping soup- you’ve got points, but they’re all rather unsuited for holding anything of it’s substance.”

2: “Perhaps that’s because there’s not much liquid sloshing around in that bowl of yours. You’re clearly lacking the capacity to contain a full-bodied idea, lest you spill it the moment the broth heats up.”

1: “If there were something worth tasting,...

Her hands betrayed her. Not callused, not even hardened by travel and so pale like she hadn’t spent a day outside. Kahvin could tell they’d been recently manicured despite the dirt packed beneath the nail beds. It wasn’t the kind of grime that settles in over years, but the kind that's picked up quickly and sloppily, like someone unused to working with their hands at all. Untypical for someone who...

“Why do you want to wish for global domination anyhow?”

Control, Kahvin heard in her thoughts, but didn’t speak it aloud. Instead, she kept her eyes forward, slicing through the thick brush with her pocket knife, branches snapping away with crisp, deliberate motion.

“Why wouldn’t you?” she said finally, not bothering to turn around. “You haven’t even told me what you're wishing for. Why should I...

Folding like I’m the one whose got something to hide

With every crease I feel more sour

Rubbing the juice of lemon in my eyes

It’s not the entire reason why I’m crying

It’s citrus scent wafts the memory

Of you out on the water with me

Sway of the current, your secret

My paper boat soaks, bending

Can’t keep it...

My hand feels like a waistband that slips off cause it’s too loose

My fingertips elastic once more like a popped birthday ballon

I held the breath, and now it’s gone

The space between the next inhale

To adapt, and now move on

Farewell, so long....

“A pack of bubble gum?”

“Yup.” Albert said nonchalantly, giving only a small up nod with his head.

“Seriously?” Angie said with a scoff, mumbling something that sounded a lot like “retard” under her breath.

Albert let the bubble he was blowing pop against his lips as he kicked his sandles off haphazardly onto the nearby mossy rock he wasn’t sitting on.

He mentally apluaded himself for giving...

Gentle cold air

Frosted grass

Numbness in my fingers

From the strength of your grasp

Unwillingly lead

Through shadows of trees

The buttstock of the gun in your pocket

Brushing up against me

Not a look of despair

Surrendering to the pull

I’m incredibly still

Staying detained in your hold

You don’t meet my eyes when you’re scanning my face

If you’d arch my back I would let myself colla...