unopened tulips

he judges her like her personal critic
while he edits himself
of the very same things
he aims to change of her
Clear
the confusing trail
self projection
is

we sat on the balcony. not together, just at the same time. occupying space, like furniture and books.

Does remembering make me wise
Does forgetting make me naive
The learned say
Know when to distinguish the two
Yet I confuse the two
I remember when I should forget
Forget after I should remember
Often being neither wise nor naive
Just swinging incompetently
Between the two

It is easier for me to tell you what he likes about me; that is a short list.

my need is short lived
my tongue long still salivating
after he pulls his lips away
his diet was not always this strict
in our first few weeks
when my legs were closed
and my mouth open
when he did not know what language beat between my lungs
only sure of the desire of my fingers
searching his face like Braille,
his lips only sought out mine
his hunger open, ravenous
never doled out
like the precious dessert it is now

You know what happens.
I recede like beach water, at low tide. I recede so far back that I no longer want to crash on your coral reefs.

Silence silence silence
His words tell me
Bind me
I ask in protest
Can I not express myself?
His words agree
Yet his expressions deceive
Silence they repeat
Your expressions and feelings
Have no validation
If you want to be heard
Then speak my language
Pretty up your feelings
Your pain should always be lesser than mine
I go to throw up my hands
And realize
They are bound

She never liked numbers. Whether they were alone or accompanied by graphs. Numbers signified for her things she had to do. First it was figuring out what number came after the equal sign or which numbers were hidden by the elusive and unknown x. Then later they appeared with words, always at the end of official letters beside the command “due by”. Sometimes they were displayed in red, like in her bank account.
Certain numbers stayed vivid in her mind, like fourteen weeks, or ninety-eight days, or two days shy of one hundred. That‘s why the second time around, numbers became important to her, the application on her phone stating another week had gone by and with it a tiny brick of fear falling away. Pretty soon she was excited to see the numbers meeting in the middle, twenty weeks behind, nineteen more and some change to go.
Now she sees thirty-four weeks have gone by. But what scares her is the second column, with the second set of numbers, five weeks and five days. The countdown. That fear of numbers has returned and now the obligation tied with them are far more serious then the numbers of her past. She is not deceived by the hearts listed next to those numbers because even though they are laying flat on her screen, appearing one dimensional as they are, she knows by the heavy bulge that weighs her down and the kicks in her belly, that these numbers will give birth to the most important single digit number in her life.

Every once in a while
Like a hiccup
In my minds eye I see them two together
In that one room bar that went from a favorite
To only filled with this memory
I reread those erased messages
That conversation on the sun filled bench
Denying
The guilt flying out of his mouth
As hard rocks, irretrievable
My body remembers the trauma
Like an old wound in cold weather

The loyalty of love
Is fickle

Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday. Heart feels better, then. But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. Heart is so new to this. I want them back, says heart. Head is all heart has. Help, head. Help heart.

- Lydia Davis