Notes from a Genius

Tonight, That I May Be Her hair is a tousled mess By the armchair lay her dress When we met last night And exchanged names and pleasantries How was I to know we’d wake together bathed in sunlight When we were complementary Love is war And war is hell Shots from the bar And shots that don’t go far Love does all it can to compete Those words from the hallway repeat Making me wish you’d dressed In all the appropriate attire We were a mistake, set to retire I knew But couldn’t help feeling so blue At the loss of you

Untitled #1 Explosions in the sky Like rockets Only fireworks To admire from a distance As we hold Each other close Drowned out conversations So we can only Watch the lips move And wonder What happens when they stop And what they look like pressed together Softness against softness Deep red against pink and parched Well I lost my faith at night In something deeper to contend with Still I fight To keep composure Like an addict Begs for winter We make predictions for a new year And resolutions we’ll never hold to Because all is lost when we are near The scenery lends itself To a romance That could only have place in the pages Of the books we read In high school Except ours can’t be so tragic Because When you say you want it It could only mean one thing We spill champagne On our brand new outfits And what seemed so innocent Becomes the reason for this night In the truest sense of the word You’ve become the last form The last in many lines I’ve said Recited before bed You’re the image stuc

Weekend Visits and Corsages for a Dress Rehearsal When your head collapsed on my shoulder As I drove us home I felt your fingers grasp my arm And heard you breathe softly As I sang along to the music That played softly from the stereo Palm of my hand to your cheek Our breathing becoming in sync A smile forms across my lips A desire I can no longer hide I fight the urge to pull over If only you didn’t have to be home by ten of eleven Your cheek, so flushed and pink Your tired eyes fighting off sleep Cherries blossom On the side of the road And in the passenger’s seat With my hand between your warm thighs Your words from the night before Still ring in my ears When you said, “You mean the world to me” I want to share more than my bed with you I want to share the moments of a lifetime If we can wrap them up into these evenings Although I have no answer to your question I know you make me want to live so much longer If living longer means living it with you I want to feel the way it feels

So, there we were, having taken our positions on the couch in the living room to celebrate Christmas as best as we could given our circumstances. My parents were separated and going through what I could only describe as I lengthy, exhaustive, and bitter divorce. I proceeded to unwrap my sister’s gift to me. It was a copy of Joy Division’s album “Closer.” I believe she had decided on this particular gift as an innocent, yet provocative, gesture. A gesture that symbolically told me that she was now, somehow, cooler than me, since I had really no idea who this band was (at the time). “Thank you Jen,” I said, rather dronely. Even though it was apparent, I did not want her to think she was cooler than me. It was not her time to take her place on the pedestal above me, at least when it came to music, for Christ’s sake. I worked at a reputatable, independent record store (thus making me the envy of all my high school peers and my sister) and she was only a freshman in college, where she had a