‘Crystal Runners Down Your Cheek’ I don’t think we get power from color. I think it’s a hindrance; roses bloom because it’s spring, not because they’re red. I slit your skin, and contact with air flowers the white meat, and you curtsy to the blood. Bow before the cross, Rosicrucian— nails like stems, grounded roots, and a flute plays a melancholy, if nothing else. I wish you would, I really wish you’d flood whatever I have left, so that we could start a starry and blurry nursery of thought. Worship every workplace— every hue a ricochet, flown through a funnel to some rear-seated lobe, and it’s a trope. We are all brains, I hope. It’s my closest plea, programmed as we are by media and algorithm, by those that think they’re better— and they aren’t.

‘Flint and Ferrous’ Gold and 9mm rounds, I swallow them whole, brass biting my throat, wrapped in silver foil, tongue tasting the burn— hard money for my soul. I flick the lighter— it sputters, catches, your grin flickering, and the fire drips through my bones. Your touch—a match, a jolt of ice, phosphorus, and a striking taste on your breath, mint and muddled fruit. Molten metal pushed by pressure through my veins, pulse quickening, heat tearing seams, or so it seems. I turn to oil in your hands, a slick sheen, sliding— massaging my chest, ribs counted, as I hold my breath, and that’s just a Sunday or a Friday. Nothing left, but to resurrect, and die for the sins of a man, you spreading my limbs abreast, staring as this daughter rises, and rays fall as my back arches. -N&A

Pink vibes 🌸✨ #photostr #photography #nature #flowers

‘Hobo Rhapsody’ Let your troubles roll by, like broken axles on Tonka trucks, treaded plastic, rolling doughnuts. Grandpa’s toothpicks weren’t tough enough for a hard day’s work, dropping dirt from the back fence to the patio, where his son stood. Farther away than interest could, wrapped in a dense cloud of cigar smoke, rocking on the deck wood, heel to toe, and the embers glowed and burnt lungs as hope— faded. Let your troubles roll by with rolling papers, a pinch of tobacco, chasing highs, dodging lows. Only after cramming numbers, like gunpowder chambered, and the dealer showed a blackjack smoking over a hidden heart— ace card. I flipped past a suicide king, tarnished by a four, outs diminishing, then a two, poor house blues, hitting on sixteen, picking metal strings. I was destined to slap rhythm on a pick guard, or lose chips to this dealer, turning up homeless and dreaming of bright lights or a backyard. If only I knew what it was like to win with pockets of gold, or even nickels— but the slots took those too. Under a bridge, shivering, a starry blanket glistening, knotted back, writhing, the thanks I get for gambling. Let your troubles roll by. A vagabond, hopping railroad ties, nipping scotch in town after town, dusty tumbleweed, no trust left for God or me. I fight rolling mountainsides— peaks cresting then crashing to wheat plains, incessant clacking, a watch keeping time waiting for the coda or a final line. -N&A