InAbsentia

For a day, they pack up their tired bones and leave the death, the chaos, and the terrible, pressing danger behind them. She slips feet that only remember practical boots and walking over fresh graves and scorched earth into flirty, carefree sandals, and it is surreal and freeing in the most dislocated way. She wears a pretty sun dress, paints lip gloss on her mouth, and pretends as she packs their picnic that she is a real girl, like she used to be. He dons comfy Converse, their faded red canvas feeling thin and unprotected around arches, heels and toes that just want to stop running (and don't know how). His jeans are old and worn, like h

Your Hand In Mine "Life is hard," you told me once. I believed you, of course I did. It wasn't like I hadn't lived at all before you (even if that was usually how it felt). I've hurt people, been hurt by them. Laughed in the morning and cried myself to sleep that night. I was never so stupid that I thought it'd be easy. But when you told me that, I replied, I told you, I smiled and I said, "But with your hand in mine, it's easier." But now... now, without you, with you gone, so gone, just a you-shaped hole left behind, and my hand empty, life is... harder.

Sleepyhead It was so perfect. My arms and legs felt heavy and relaxed, the sheets bunched at my waist, a comforting softness warmed by hours of dreaming. It was perfect. So of course it couldn't possibly last. Something hard and pointed prodded, first gently, then, when I refused to respond to the slight pressure, more abusively against my shoulder. Mumbling a sulky protest, I curled further into myself and the blankets, frowning sullenly at the rude interruption. "Wake up, sleepyhead," Colin's rough voice and smiling lips against my ear were almost enough to make up for the undignified horror of consciousness.

Remember Me as a Time of Day She came upon my life like a setting sun. The warmth and the light drew to a close with her arrival, and everything began to settle into shadow, to lose definition and focus. She brought with her a lowering gloom over everything she touched, and I could tell I'd never seen anything quite like her before, and that I'd never see anything quite like her again. I thought her so beautiful, and wished she could last forever. But she was an ending.

Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean Everything felt like moving through syrup as I scraped paint off the door, trying to fit the key in the lock, and once the tumbler turned, and I half fell in with the door, I was almost ready to quit life in that very moment. Sighing, I stepped into the kitchen through the open side door, leaving it ajar for you to shut behind us, and tossed my keys sloppily onto the scuffed kitchen table. I grimaced, pulling at the sticky, soaking wet front of my shirt and shuddering as it peeled noisily away from my skin. "Ugh. I feel like I just spent a week at the bottom of the Mississippi." Eyes laughing, with your

My Favourite Game I lay back and licked my lips, feeling parched, dehydrated, like I was losing the last bit of moisture in my whole body in the drops that pooled in the corners of my eyes as I moved my face to look up at you. You reached down, dragged your fingertips along the curve of my cheek, touching me like I was something that belonged to you. My chin trembled, my breath shook. I turned my face away, but it was a slow, weak gesture. Fluttering my eyes closed, hot trails burned down towards my temples as you turned my face back again. "Why do you play with me like this?" I asked. My voice was so tired. You chuckled, so amused, so wa

You love her so much, it's tragic. Such perfect adoration, the way you look at her, the slant of your shining eyes, the tuck at the corner of your mouth. God, the way you love her, it almost makes me sick. Your hands drink in every littlest brush against her skin like a rain-starved desert. Thirsty, so thirsty, and wondering, amazed, dazed and confused. You hardly know what this is, that makes your breath short and your heart nearly stop. But you're learning, yes, you're beginning to see. Every time her eyes take you in or that smile is for you, you get a little closer to tasting your pulse under her skin. God, it's practically cinematic

I want something beautiful. Something real. Give me hands with long fingers and large palms familiar with the curve of my cheek. I want lips that brush my skin with the lightest touch, because sometimes that's exactly what those lips want. I need arms that know when I need holding, a body that cradles mine like I'm something worth protecting and keeping. Someone's eyes to see me, and think they see something to look at. Maybe you will like the curve of my neck, whoever you are. Or maybe there will be something in the slenderness of my shoulders that makes you ache to touch me. Perhaps that gaze will make me feel beautiful for the first

Shush me quietly, with your rough fingertips pressed to my lips, the breath hissing between your teeth teasing the skin of my neck. Your eyes are venomous, hateful, but your palm cradles my elbow so gently I could cry, and I know you feel me trembling against you by the way your mouth tightens into a thin line. There is a little violence in how you press me to the wall, a deep, abiding anger that will haunt the bruises your hand on my hip will leave. The way you hate the way you want me is described by every single line of your body, spoken softly by every tiny move you make against me. I wonder if you see me right now as clearly as I do

(Rain falls outside on the balcony, the battered, whitewashed french doors open, the filmy curtains wafting gently in the draft. The room is dark, illumination coming from the gray day outside, ghosting everything in blues and grays. He sits on the floor, back against the wall, his knees drawn up and bare feet pale against the dark, grained floorboards. He is dressed in loose-fitting dark gray drawstring pants and a black shirt that is a size too large, the cut-out collar slipping over one shoulder as he leans his head back against the wall. His pale eyes stare at the ceiling, mapping the cracks in the plaster. His face is blank, almost slack