“It’s late. I should go…”

“…I guess.”

reluctant goodbyes

much left unsaid

four miles away, a text:

come back

searching for

a good place

to turn around

*message unsent*

too late

door opens

weak excuse

strong embrace

breathless kiss

against wall

hands in hair

skirt hiked

buttons pop

restraint melts as

boundaries die

and

love is born

*a take on my own challenge: “a good place to turn around”*

let me

give you

a tour

of my mind

enthusiastic

oversharing

inundating you

with superfluous

verbiage

and

painfully personal takes

no one asked for

like a pushy realtor

pointing out

every single amenity

as if this

will somehow

be the thing

to seal the deal

so that maybe

just maybe

this one

will buy

this one

will

stay

*a response to my own challenge: “Your mind as a house”*

He became her sunrise

And setting sun

Celestial event

Her fervent one

But then

With time

The sky

It fell

As he left her gazing

At a cold horizon

All alone

The smell confuses me.

Up until now, I have only associated it with happy times with my people.

Easter.

Trick or treating.

Christmas stockings.

Birthday cakes.

A visit from Abuela when she would make that delicious smelling hot drink on the stove and always shoo me away.

But today is not a happy time. Something’s not right. However, after the sticker poke in my arm, I’m feeling slightly better. Not as tired and thirsty like before.

I lift my head and see my people speaking to the kind man with sad eyes. My favorite girl holds a glass jar from which the confusing smell emits. She is crying as the kind man tells her “… it’s really up to you.”

My tail wags against the metal table as my people approach. They each pet me and speak gently. My favorite girl removes a foil-wrapped candy and feeds it to me as a cold sensation floods my sticker poke area.

All I can think about as the treat melts in my mouth is how it’s really no match for the sweet feeling of her forehead pressed against mine, her stroking my ears and whispering how I am the best boy ever.

Daylight lingers

as Dusk bleeds

languorous in parting

like lovers, stalling

he plants one last kiss upon

her violet bruised horizon

his supplicant gesture

goes unanswered

as she silently

slips

away

Blue is good. Like the cloudless sky and crisp, clean water.

Yellow is dirty. Like a hazard, a warning, or a terminal disease.

For the kids whose parents had prepaid for their school lunches, they stood in line holding blue cards.

I did not hold a blue card. I was one of the kids that received free lunches. Not “reduced” lunches, no. I qualified all the way to the last step: fully subsidized.

I would stand in that lunch line, clutching tight to the only reason I would eat that day. I wished for some way to hide the yellow color of my card as it felt unreasonably visible in my small hands.

Lunch was free, yet it cost so much.

Via a one word reply

With punctuation

And an emoji

That felt off

Challenge: “Tell me how your heart was broken”

As the tour guide paused to give historical details to her group, she ran her hand along the old wall.

A sense of deja vu hit her vividly, powerfully.

All at once she was laughing, running hand-in-hand with her love along the moonlit cobblestone alley. The night air was warm and fragrant with jasmine blossoms. He breathlessly twirled her around to face him. They did not have much time tonight, but it was all either of them had been living for. Her hands went to his head, fingers grasping his thick, wavy hair as they shared kisses that tasted faintly of berries and chocolate. He fumbled beneath her long skirt for a moment until her cheeks were cradled in his hands. He lifted her purposefully to him and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She felt the stone wall against her back while a much more welcome and heated hardness pressed into her eagerly. His sounds of pleasure were muted as he buried his face into her collarbone exposed by her disheveled peasant blouse—

“Signorina, stai bene?”

The tour guide's concerned query brought her back to the present. She had been slumped against the wall with her eyes closed and she was moaning. The other members of her group were gathered around saying she must have fainted from the heat. One stranger fanned her with a magazine. Another offered her a bottle of water.

“No, no I'm fine.” She embarrassedly waved away their assistance.

As the tour moved on, she quickly fished a pen out of her fanny pack and made a notation on her map. She needed to do research and learn everything she could about the history of this place and the apparent connection to her distant past.