He always stands very close to people when he speaks to them, staring with those huge golden eyes and leaning in ever so slightly, as if he is craving their touch and the feel of their breath and their hands more than anything. This is the first thing you notice when you meet him, the closeness. You ache, for a reason you don't know, to bridge the gap. To touch him. Your fingers twitch towards him but you keep your hands beside you.
And then you hear him speak, and everything else seems loud and bright and harsh compared to the gentleness of him. His lips are chapped and his big galaxy earrings glitter and his hair stands straight up and his
F = G(m1m2)/r2
Black – true black – is the absence of light. Darkness is defined by what it is not, by the lack of something else. When we say a black hole, we truly mean that; black. Blacker than black. An absence of not only light, but of time, distance, anything.
The night was scary when I was little. I hated the dark, but couldn’t bear to sleep so long as the light was on, any light, burning on the other side of my eyelids. I used to have nightmares about dark things in dark corners, shadowy figures with shadowy fingers trailing along my spine. I always woke up cold and fumbling frantically for the lamp, but the aura o
I want a girl
who thinks
with her eyes closed
(in black and white)
and does not drink chamomile tea.
She does not watch movies
by Nicholas Sparks
and thinks God
really is Morgan Freeman
or someone she has not met
yet.
She reads Goethe, Sartre
and Salinger
and knows Orlando
is more than just
a city.
She wears plain white tees
and jeans so faded
her skin has lost its
color
and her shoes
chew the pavement
with real distinction.
You see it coming from the men.
You see the ways their eyes linger on you
When they're looking around the room
The way their bodies brush yours when you're walking through the hallways to class
The way they stutter and look away when apologizing for the accidental contact of skin to skin
You see it coming from the men.
You never see it coming from me.
God, was the world not complicated enough already
Without causing me to notice the interplay of textures in her hands
The calluses like mahogany mountains carving ridges of stone
Into her palms softer than Impressionistic sunlight?
I'm not supposed to feel this way about another woman
"There are good days and there are bad days," you would say to me as you would try and explain away why the whiskey bottle was empty again this morning, why you smelled like her and why you thought it was best to let me know what you had done. At least that way, you were absolved of the gift of lying; the one your bones were too light to lift and just couldn't take, by bestowing me with betrayal.
My mother would bring me an encouraging cup of tea in a giant pink mug instead of a cup and explain, "There are good days and there are bad days." Her eyes were always full of positive energy and strength and good will. I look back to those days and