Skimming along the infinite pavement, held together by yellow stitching, I feel myself start to hydroplane, though my wheels are spinning firmly on the ground.
There is a look-out at the beginning of a gravel road, and I pull in. The marshes are hazy and placid beneath the September morning clouds, and after stretches of cat tails, I see life reflecting on the Columbia.

I turn off the ignition and climb on top of my little Pontiac, cross-legged and shy in my $6.00 trench coat. The breeze is mild but I am shivering from the morning, the life, the love, the overdose of caffeine. I stuff my hands into the coat pockets and search around, nimble-fingered, for the last evidence of this week's addiction. My fingers glide along the wand of nicotina, bring it to my chapped lips, and then spark the black magic. I inhale and exhale just as quickly, letting tiny spirals of chemical cloud escape my lips and spread into the void between my feet and the sky. I tap the remaining amber ashes on my knee and let them smolder into my skin, gasping in memory of the boy.

room 52, 3rd door on the left.

Jack Daniels
makes himself comfortable at my kitchen table.
The telephone cord is wrapping itself
around the tip of my toe,
devouring its prey.
Billie Holliday lulls me from
the record player in the corner.
She is the only woman
who loves me tonight.

In a room below, Melanie paces
in blue socks
around a poem supplied as a good-bye
from a boy who loves her
but every reason he gives of why
they are ment to be together
are the exact reasons
he cannot stay.

On the floor above,
a bohemian waitress and a painter
discuss Picasso
while fucking on the tile floor.
She inspires him, he says.
She contemplates painting her bedroom bright green.

Back in room 52, 3rd door on the left,
Jack Daniels is long gone,
the phone cord is cutting off the circulation
in my big toe,
and the dial tone has been mocking me
for some time now.

gold in the air of summer

Poplar leaves, catching the glimmer of the sun, cast soft shadows across my skin. My freckles match the earth, and my lungs are filled with the breath of tree sap, soil and mountain ai. Dirt covers my bare feet, scratched from twigs and dented with pepples. I feel connected to My Mother Earth. I press my palm against the trunk of a Cedar, and I swear I can feel it's heart flutter, it's life rythm beating with mine - we are one universal force, breathing in, breathing out.

this piece was inspired by a good friend a lifestyle I long for. all characters/feelings are fictional, just like every other piece.
****************

Skinny hands under the curve of my cheek, my eyelashes brush against his finger tips, letting light in , f-stop by f-stop. Wind and the smell of tar choke me. My lips are dry, and dirt has gathered in the corners of my mouth. My tongue is a gravel pit, and my bangs are hanging in my eyes - I haven't seen a shower in over a week.

"Good morning, beautiful."


My hands reach up to his face, and I trace weeks of red and brown stubble. Tiny freckles under my finger tips, then chapped lips. Soft eyelashes under the eyes that capture the sun and my love, bigger than any fire star.

"How was your sleep?" he asks. My neck is sore from the backpack-pillow, my face indented from the straps and I am cold. "Well. How are you?" A big smile, hands on his belly, he replies "ah, you know. i am a man in need of little sleep." On that note, he opens his backpack and pulls out his portable kettle, a lighter, coffee grounds, and twigs we collected at our last stop. We huddle beside each other, facing the back of the train car. We light a tiny fire in the base and hunch our backs to shelter it from the draft of this speeding train. He pours the coffee grounds into a kleenex filter and pour the water in. It steeps for a few minutes, and then he fills our tin cups. It's dark and bitter - perfect. I can't remember how coffee from a 'real pot' even tastes.

Leaning against the cold steel, we sip our coffee and let our bones and blood come alive. He slips a gloved hand in mine. I smile and turn towards the west, gazing at the Rocky mountains that share my heart with this boy. I lean against him, skinny ribs and all, and I feel his lungs heaving up and down, sucking it all in.