Space

Above the cream-colored silhouettes of rooftops, and not too far into the night sky, the three lights of the space shuttle made it's obelisk form in the sky. I watched it there, watched the lights of the boosters as they drifted off from the other, breaking away and falling down to earth. It was beautiful.
"It's so beautiful", I said to him as he held me in my arms. I pressed my face into his chest as he and the rest of them looked up at the shuttle.
"What--" some one began, and I turned back to see two bright, hazy rings, like circular explosions of starlight, surrounding the far away light. We all watched the rings dissipate like thin, wispy clouds.
"They're dead." Someone said.
"We're watching history." Said another.
"No." I said, trying to rationalize the bright rings in the sky. I tried to explain to them, while watching little pieces of light float down through the sky like tiny, burning ashes.
"They're dead." He says, still holding me. "Funny how it was such a beautiful thing, and now they're dead."
I heard someone else in the group suggest that it might not have been a manned flight. It was easier to think that. I nodded and pressed myself back into his shirt.

Jason and Sarah

Jason pressed the cigarette inbetween his lips, leaning his head forward, towards the gunmetal-gray lighter in his hand. He let the tip of the flame lick back and forth over the tip until it cherried to his satisfaction. Closing the cover down with a click, he inhaled smoke and ash through the filter and into his lungs, holding it painfully there for a moment before he allowed himself to exhale.
The room was already too smoky--and it was a small room besides; the yellow light caught itself up in the smoke and made a sort of a wall. Somewhere, on the other side of that wall, Sarah was there, even though he could not see her. The very closeness of the walls seemed to amplify and echo the sound of his breath, making it less of a rise and a fall and more of a trembling. Now, the cigarette made his exhales slow and controlled. It quieted the sound of trembling breath, but did not silence it. The room seemed to become smaller as Jason's perception was swallowed by consciousness of his Self. The sound of his heart filled his ears. And yet, in-between beats, he could sometimes pick out the whisper of her breath.
She didn't want to be there; he knew as much.
He couldn't see her, but he knew her well enough; she was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the day they first met. She was worn down now, she had been broken in, and as he thought this, he also thought that it was his fault that she was this way, it was he who had destroyed her, who had used that youth and niaveity and spent it with his own.
Her eyes, like the rest of her, were beautiful, but unaffected. They looked at things, but never any further, never in; as if she had already seen and learned enough for her years.
They were still children, but Jason struggled to admit it to himself. To think that there were still so many years. Still so much pain.
Jason extinguished the cigarette on the ginger-gray cement floor. The smoke began to clear. He could see Sarah's blonde hair and still blue eyes. As if they had ever been gone from him. Here she was before him, two years of his life, devoted. Signed away. And she hated him. Hated him. It killed him to know but he rolled it over in his head, once and twice and then again.
He exhaled, but there was no more smoke in his lungs. She sat there, her hands folded in her lap.
"Is that it?" He asked, though nothing had been exchanged between them. She didn't reply, just looked at him with her still eyes. I could use another cigarette, he thought to himself, if only to hide her still, blue eyes.

Two for Adam

Nice guys finish last, but I'll let you win this time. It's the least I can do. You let my hand slip into yours and every time is a victory. Every kiss is glorious. Every smile heralds my own. A thousand years could not contain this. Let this peace lie, I want to make love, not war.

Adam.
Sometimes I feel you stealing the breath from my chest
And the uncertainty, oh how it's beautiful
It feels like light falling through
A sheet of autumn leaves
The light, gold, thick, dripping down, covering the naked stems
It feels so slow, and oh how it's beautiful
We are like two stars in the night sky
May I hold your light
Close to my own
For a little while
Just a little while
Eternity could be so much longer
Than we ever thought

Justin

Oh, how it's so nice to lay with you
And feel your fingers entwine themselves
In mine
Oh, how lovely a thing, free will
When yours is the same as my own.
How nice, your face, your eyes, your lips
Are, in my mind, possessed forever
Of kisses and
Touches
Oh, how sad a thing, to be the fool
To cling to invisible vines, reaching, grasping
Hoping,
Oh, how you make me hope
To love you some day, as my own
Though now I can barely possess
The meager weight of your lips on mine.

The Runner

Been running all day long. And Jesus, how long is this road. This has got to be the longest road I have run. And the asphalt's uneven here. It goes patchy, and I can feel my ankle twisting around in the mouth of my shoe. I'm tired. No I'm not. No I'm not. Keep it up. One mile to the ocean. Just one mile to the finish. You're not first, but things change, right. Two years ago you were battling a meth addiction, but now you're fine. You're in shape. You hope so. I know so. You know so. I feel a pain in my side. My stomach's cramping up. No, it's not. Yours is. That's it. Separate yourself. Separate your mind from the pain. Let the body go on hurting. You survive. You survive.
You battled a meth addiction, god damn it, you can run this fucking race, you can beat it. Here's a hill. Take it steady. Don't hit that incline too hard. Don't let the muscles in your foot cramp up. God damn it, out of breath! Fucking Methadone. Fucking drugs. Should've stuck to cigarettes.
Cigarette's a drug. Janie was always on me for those god damned cigarettes. She was glad when I quit, when I was pumping a hundred bucks of meth into my veins every week. Of course she didn't know that. She just saw me get weak. I got skinny, and tired, and angry. Janie never knew I was on meth. I went away for a while.
Fucking leg! I took that incline too hard. Football injury, I wish. Never tell that to Janie. That was how I met her. I only lied to her twice. Once when I met her with that damned brace on. I was wearing Joe's letterman jacket. Told her I got it intercepting a pass. Told her some big guy knocked my knee out. I'd never played a fuckin round of football in my life. Is that what they call it? Rounds? Who fucking knows.
The second time was with the meth. I went away for a while. You went away for a while, didn't you? Only one more mile.
Maybe less. You told her your brother invited you up north to hunt. You never hunted a day in your life. Guns make you nervous. Especially after the meth. The sane part of you was scared the shaky little fingers you got would go trigger-nuts and fire the fucking thing into the side of somebody's head.
But you beat that, I beat that. That's over. The race is almost over. I'm close. Less than a mile now. Maybe half. Guy in front of you, old fucker, got to be at least 50. But god damn, look at that tone. Wish I had that tone. Might've, if it weren't for the meth. His legs go on forever, two pistons in a gray little engine, god damn.
You should stop cursing so much, and go back to church, you know. Would probably do Janie some good. Make her feel better. Maybe it would give her some credit in the big guy's book, making a bastard like me go to services. If anyone deserves to go to heaven, boy, it's my Janie.
I remember the song that was playing at our wedding, god damn, was that a long time ago, another life. Some old broad crying out on some scratchy record. "At last" she said. "At last". I can see the finish line now. You're in first, now, did you notice. Engine legs is behind you, standing there, looking at you. Sweating in his little yellow outfit. Looking at you like you're far away. Sure looks scared. You got it, boy, you got it.
But boy, that song. It sure got to you. Things like that shouldn't get to you, should they?
Keep running. Win it for Janie. Boy, she'd sure like that trophy. God damn. She deserves it. That's it. No more lies. You sure do love her.
Now everybody's stopped, watching you. Did you win already? No, there's the tape, ahead of you. And every body's standing around you, not bothering to break it. Here's some guy, poking at you. You gotta get up, you got to break that tape, got to get that trophy for Janie. What the hell does she want with trophies anyways, but she'll be happy cause you gave it to her.
You remember her on your wedding day, god damn. What a sight. All covered in white and flowers. Legs like you wouldn't believe. What a shame! But she sure was beautiful. You remember, don't you?
And you danced with her to that song, the one that got to you, that old broad singing out on that old scratchy record. And you held her close, and you can still remember the smell of her hair, god damn.
And that old broad singing,(an ambulance is here) "At last". (maybe something's wrong). Over and over again. "At last". (try to get up )Boy, what you wouldn't give to dance with Janie again, to smell her hair.

Sunset

There's a certain sense of exclusivity in the the warmth of a setting sun; as if it exists to focus it's waning rays into a point upon your body. It grazes the faces of buildings as it passes, making gold the edges of upturned leaves as it floods the city streets, searching for you.
It catches you, possesses your eyes. It makes you a being of light and warmth. It reflects. And all shadows in it are obsolete.

Ben

It gets to be so that I don't know what to say to the tune of his name. I never could have seen myself loving someone with such a simple appellation; once there was an Ivo, and once there was an Erhan, and even an Andrei. I never could've supposed that the name that etched itself the deepest in the surface of my heart would be one so common. But there's love.
Love is a common thing--and not quite so extraordinary as people make it out to be--there are people everyday, loving one another, not knowing or knowing it just the same. It is only the presumpuous artist that takes that fragile egg of a thing and tosses it around with words and tries to define it, and places boundaries in the spaces through which we were once allowed to expand.
"Ben" never meant anything to me--I had not known one, but in passing acquaintanceship. It was a name colored gray in neutrality, a blank face to the world.
Now that I have loved Ben, his name pervades every corner of my existence--when reading a book in which a character is named Ben, my Ben assumes the character's role; Ben is the face for every Ben in the universe, and every whispering of his name is special, whether it is of my Ben or another's.
I think that now, I am grateful that my deepest love was for a Ben--because an Emmanuel or a Giacomo simply wouldn't have done--because now, when I am old, and my children ask--being too young to comprehend the utter foolishness of the question--"What is the meaning of love?"--I can tell them a way that is concise but still faithful to the soul's definition--
Love is such a simple word, so perfect, so small. It seems as if it was meant to be written next to Ben's name. Not on some volume, but in the deep, secret places of my mind--
Love means realizing that "Ben" does not belong to me; rather, I belong to it. His name and his memory are forever entwined. He runs through my blood now. He is in my veins.
Perhaps this may change. Perhaps I will meet another Ben, and he will shatter my Ben to pieces, the glass rendering my mind has made him.
I hope not to live to see that day.