The boy stopped. For a single moment, the world was breathless. Everything silent. He looked into some deep mystery, one he could still not understand fully. It perplexed him. He watched sunlight dance in the elk’s eyes, framed with thick lashes. The elk stared back, cautiously. It stood tall, powerful and somehow effortlessly elegant. It was the first time the boy ever saw a wild creature—a truly wild creature. He didn’t want to shoot the elk. His arms relaxed, he slowly lowered his rifle.

A loud shot rang through the forest. The boy’s heart fluttered. The elk staggered. It fell as if in a dance. The boy watched as the creature struggled to breathe, each inhale shaking. Held by the moment, he approached the thing. The elk watched the boy with one eye, and he could see himself standing in the reflection of it. The boy thought he looked tall for just a moment, but then the elk exhaled for the last time and a little blood trickled out of its mouth.

“Did I get it?” A low voice bellowed from a distance.

The boy didn’t answer, he didn’t even glance up. He had never seen anything so majestic in all of his years. In thirty seconds his father went from a simple hunter, to a destroyer of life. The boy wondered if there were a difference between killer and destroyer of life. He thought maybe there was.

—-

A little boy stood on top of a shed.
The long grass of an unattended field
already browned from days and days of summer.
The sky, ever blue; perfectly blue, like a robin’s egg,
ready to break with birth and song.

He drew his shoulders out,
as the brave ones have always done.
He deeply inhaled.
His mom told him he could do anything,
anything he dreamed.

His body whirled into the air.
The winds tickled his face,
welcomed him to their home,
laughing and galloping
as the little boy lingered with them.

Then, the brown grass took him,
kidnapped the boy from his own party,
and presented him with the strangest sense.
A little girl with blonde hair and big eyes
sat near the shed and stared in silence.

“I thought I could fly,” the boy said.
“I thought you could, too,” the girl said.

—-

I have your short temper.
Your breath, stinking with alcohol
and foul language,
is mine.

I have your dark hair,
and in the screaming winds,
it whips wildly
just like yours.

I have your pale skin,
the visible mark of lacking something;
sunlight, love,
you.

I have your quick feet,
and when my heart flutters
they carry me away
just like yours.

But I have my mother’s eyes;
big and blue and well adorned with lashes,
and they always see right from wrong
just like mom’s.

—-

The blue sea, glittering and quiet, gently lapped and licked the little girl’s toes; the sky, vast and clouded; the two appeared as one with no definite horizon, only the knowledge that there was one somewhere.

The little girl’s plain, brown hair blew wildly in the whisper of the winds. A pearl of salty tear fell from her right eye and rolled to the crease of her upper lip. With a calloused thumb, the mother wiped the tear and asked why the little girl cried.

“It’s so pretty,” the little girl said, but a dark cloud loomed over the sea and it seemed the scene wouldn’t last but for a few moments more and the sea began to stir in a way that frightened the little girl. She didn’t understand.

The mother ran her fingers through the little girl’s hair and stooped down to hug her. “Daughter, if you want to survive this world it’s important to always remember: the perfect heart is pure but also strong. It silences in the face of beauty and hardens in the face of villainy.”

—-

Your lips
(your lips,
oh, your lips)
grazing mine;
that’s all I dream—that’s all.

Your arms
(your arms,
oh your arms)
holding mine;
that’s all I dream—that’s all.

So far away,
     miles
              and kilometers
still, all I dream of is you
and I in the slumbers of sweet sleep.
The soft whispers of night,
the gentle graces of our love.

That’s all I dream—that’s all.

—-

I beg my muscles
to forget your arms
holding me sweetly
(but they never listen—
or perhaps my begging is too gentle).

I beg my skin
to not remember the soft touch
of your flesh against mine
(but my skin fails me so—
perhaps because I do not wish to fully forget).

I beg my lips
to not whisper your name
in the silence of lone nights.
I am slightly successful with this
(but only slightly so—as your name
   runs
           and runs
   through my mind).

You stole my whole heart
and my every body part.

—-

A simple caress,
our bodies twisted
and entwined.
Limbs over limbs,
lips over lips.
We lay quietly,
panting
and laughing.
Your eyes glaze over me,
over my body and breasts;
your eyes in my eyes,
and you see me.

—

A light shines through your eyes,
overwhelming the dullness of your flesh.
It’s your light I see.
Through the dark smog
of how you think you are,
I see your light.

—-

Your lips, unmoving,
beg of me a kiss.
And your lips, unmoving,
succeed in this seduction
for your lips, unmoving,
rival your eyes, unblinking,
your voice, silently,
your skin, so soft,
your perfection, always strong and bare.

Your lips, unmoving;
my heart flutters.