little volcano

You're so hot, he said, taking her temperature with his body.

You melt me from within, he said, from deep inside her molten core.

photo: camilla akrans

first

"I was first."

Everyone stopped talking and stared at her as if she'd done

something unconscionable. The pronouncement hovered, rippling in

the air long after she'd closed her mouth. It was brash, perhaps,

but the words had escaped with unstoppable certainty,

a bold assertion which refused to be challenged.

They all stood in silence, indefinitely fixed

on this public act of self-defense.

It was her first.

photo: tea shafie

ruin, silently

Somehow we were ruined, like that time you bled on my new white sheets. Remember those new white sheets?

Now they're stained with silence, the fading outlines reminders

of everything left unsaid.

I never said this, either. I love your middle name.

Photo: appleapplegreen

transference

Hovering above bare flesh I stole his sadness,

trapped like a newborn's breath in feline lungs.

photo: hophopscotch

My hand on your chest, you never liked it when I touched your heart.

photo: self

like leaves

They sat facing each other on the train's vinyl seat as it carried them all the way out to the sea. Squinting, she dressed his pale lips in bold hues, creating a bow with her brush where there wasn't before.

Frozen in her hands, he held his breath while she worked. She'd never paint him unrecognizable, though she often did herself.

And she pulled back and smiled, dizzied by the blur of trees through the window behind him. Then like leaves kissing glass, she brushed her lips against his, undoing it all before the ocean ever could.


photo: LOV-E