Grace me with the sound of my name leaving your lips.

Give me a chance to imagine you as mine. Let me wear

your name like a suit of armor and I swear that I would ride

right into battle without a single fear. Listen to me whisper

to you because you like the intimacy of hushed tones and

skin met with warm breath. Beating hearts have never beat

this hard before. Comment on how soft my skin is while my

hands get lost in the mane your proudly wear. You are my

alpha male. My lips are your lips. The words I say, the words

I write, the words I sing are all for you. Bleeding hearts should

never beat this hard. My calloused hands have found a home

in your hands. I know I know I know I haven’t even loved you yet.

Darlene swung her legs from the arm of her oversized lounge chair and planted her feet on the floor.  She squinted and leaned closer to the window but still didn’t recognize either of the suited men exiting the black Lincoln parked in front of her house.

“Amy, I have to go,” she whispered into the phone.

“What’s wrong, you sound-“

“I’ll call you later.”  Darlene ended the call.  She watched the men briskly make their way to her door and ring the bell.  She didn’t bother to answer.  Maybe they’ll just go away.  Even as she thought it, she knew that wouldn’t happen.

Darlene didn’t understand how her life got so messy.  When she stood at the altar and said “I do” without her daddy’s blessing eight years ago, she knew it would be hard but never imagined her life’s path would lead here; barely alive inside and out with a…

Did I ever tell you what happened to my fourth grade class? No, I don’t think I did; I’ve never told anyone, and I’d even forgotten myself until recently. The mind does things to protect itself from certain unpleasant facts, and forgetting is a powerful one. Some call that weakness, but I call it practical. We are not equipped to deal with enormity beyond a certain scale. Just as we cannot see things that are too small, we are unable to take in things that are too big. Until we are confronted with them directly. So it was with me.

I’ll tell you now, while the memory is still sharp.

In the fourth grade I was an active boy. Not one for academics, I was a thoroughly indifferent student. I lived for recess and sometimes for PE. I loved to run and climb things, trees and rocks; on one occasion…

Burning red cheeks are what I see in the mirror. Burning red cheeks and a blue lump on my forehead with blood running from it. It was stupid, and I knew it was stupid, but I was drunk. Or that is my excuse, and I will cling to it as to a rubber dinghy in a stormy sea if they ask me.

And why did I really do it? Because Christopher once said that he thought pole dancing was sexy. Is it possible to become more pathetic than that?

I thought that I hit rock bottom when I began showing up to hockey practice because of him and tried to stop glancing at him in the shower. It did not even give us anything to talk about. Hockey. And now this.

I could bury myself, no, encase myself in cement far beneath the arctic ice cap. Then the scientists could…

Like an old filmstrip, my mind reels back to a time when we were all much younger and healthier; a distant memory behind all the haze created by adulthood drama and many nights of drinking too much wine. I can find this frame when I get lost inside myself, sliding down tunnels through memories to the caverns where childhood moments rest eternally. Brush off the dust. It is time for a break from the reality of the here and now to recall a story from some past life. Though current stresses and circumstances threaten to steal from us the best of what is left in our mortal remembrance box, there are some stories that will always remain protected from the distractions of the present.

There is a young blonde girl and two adult women. They are dancing and singing in the living room of the small house. I am standing…