You know when you breathe something in --

like the scent of your lover's skin that he's left behind in the sheets,

like your mother's perfume left behind on one of her old scarves,

your brother's body spray that clings to the walls of his room even after he's moved out?

And you breathe it in,

you close your eyes & you breathe it all in.

And -- for a second -- your heart stops,

your whole body gets hot, then cold,

& the warm chill drizzles from the top of your head down through the soles of your feet.

You breathe it in, and their odor becomes a part of you again,

you become a part of them again.

Teleported, transformed, overwhelmed,

you inhale again & again & again,

until that moment

when you realize,

the scent is gone;

you're just inhaling air.

Is this what happens with love?

ghost of a first kiss.

as i slip out of consciousness, your words press down against my chest
and echo in the hollow space where your tender voice once gave me breath.
it's sweetly suffocating me, the smell of you woven through my sheets,
inciting dreams so bittersweet, my sanity unraveling
-- time --
with every flutter of my eyes,
it slips away and then rewinds
to memories: our bodies bind, our souls entwined
til my reflection in your eyes sighs,
deep like the ocean of your touch
whose waves crash smoothly through my skin,
caress my sin,
then break within
the very heart that let them in.

The wind (flowing

through the cracks

in the window

to my soul)

is laced with your laughter.

. . .

So here are some (in)complete thoughts that I've been keeping track of in my journal. May or may not develop them. Maybe, sometimes thoughts are better fragmented?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Double bass. Smell of rain. Heart begins to beat again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Leaves of warm gold sweep away the cold

of the pavement.

In the blink of an eye, they liquefy, and I,

in the air, taste them.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My body is free, but my mind is enslaved

to the beautiful thought of your lips on my face.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chance drunken encounter that intoxicates my soul,

Random stranger, you hold me with such purpose,

and I feel freer bound to you than I ever have alone;

I see with clarity the confusion you're going to cause.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

l'esprit des mots.

and what if,

instead of language barriers, we built bridges from our tongues?

if my words dove from my lips and curled underneath your chin?

& the soft growl from your throat wrapped them up

and held them close,

'til they bloomed from their cocoons

and spun worlds between our breaths?

Slam.

Too unfinished for words, but just needed to write it down somewhere that will be unaffected when (not if) my computer inevitably crashes. And now back to research for Cultural Studies . . .

The look in your eyes when I tell you goodbye is so lost,

I forget who I am in their reflection.

When you tell me to please stay, I'm tongue-tied, my knees sway,

but giving in now would be my greatest deception.

From our first night together, I fell for you hard

& have been trying to pick myself up ever since,

'cause you got me through safely, you loved me, you shaped me,

but I am the only one who can create me.

I see our rich history shine through your pain;

droplets of time fall from your beautiful face: rain

washing away love we'll never replace,

love we'll never un-taste.

What is love anyway?

'Cause they say that true love has no beginning or end --

well, I truly loved you, but look where we stand.

Thoughts of our happy past now make us suffer,

our present in shambles, and when will you find another

girl?

The thought of you loving

somebody that's not me

with the body you gave me --

it makes me go crazy. Baby,

pay me no mind

if I pretend not to see you when you enter my mind.

When every word that you speak throws me backward in time,

how did we go from limitless to fear of crossing the line?

And I -- I'm hanging on to every day,

tightrope from loss to love, but you're making me sway -- I can't stay,

so instead of falling down, I fly away.

A force of nature's what I am; you can't touch me gravity.