Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Organic Chemistry, Graduate Edition


Eternal sunshine 

Scrubbed clean mind 

I’d forgotten

To remember 

To forget

you, 

human. 


I always thought you just 

Beyond (or behind) my reach 

A path they could never teach 

To a case like mine,

Too guarded, 

Nope. No time. 


Me?

Just one step from good enough 

I ran up awkward, 

winding staircases

medieval structures 

fashioned like torture devices,

where you can easily 

miss a step 

and scrape your knee. 

A tower prison 

where the cursed are locked away 

With thoughts like these… 


What I should’ve said,

When I saw you again, 

was please 

Let me stay 

and I won’t go up those stairs. 


The Now I’m living simply isn’t right

Neither is yours.  


If I had

Said the words caught in my throat, 

…Choking on obligation,

Time would have solidified 

Exactly where it should have

In our before times


The spiced chill I crave would have gently 

tingled alive, timur on the tongue,

Like sleep waking just before chrysalis

With you, 

holding me around the waist

A cocoon.  


If only I could stay. There.


But, 

I remember 

to forget, 

turn away. 


The memory of my hand 

slipping out of yours (again)

A silent echo, 

Reverberating forever. 

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Standing Next to You... Electric 

It has been more than
an hour
and much longer than a minute...
Since we brushed hands, passing through a doorway
Three days, give and/or take.

It had been even longer than that...
The last time electricity powered this bulb
Brighter than Tesla current, purple exploding grape
Combustion free juice, gentle wetware
Explicable science in delicious
Tethered silence

A chance often wells,
Even Ada swam in those pools
Love-laced between pond rock and still water

Yet every glass, soft breath blown or factory hard
is a craft
Nothing is less than it seems