The ABCs of Erotica - Volume 1: A - C (Allure Beach Carnal): The ABCs of Erotica

The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender LGBT history. If a man violates his daughter, it is a capital crime. If a man violates his son, it is capital crime. The guilty may be killed by any one, without an order from the Dastur , and by this execution an ordinary capital crime may be redeemed. We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For a timeline of intersex history, see Timeline of intersex history. This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. Learn how and when to remove these template messages. This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding or removing subheadings. When you turn, I try to swallow. I look away from the rippling of your back, rolling — Lake Erie in March.

You used to drown my living room in that water, in those notes. I still find them on accident, ringing out from between cracked leather. This week I spent hours in front of the mirror, brushing the surfaces of my mouth, scraping the smoke you left inside of it— careless. I cannot swallow past my tongue in a room so quiet and dry. Her skin tells stories of red cliffs that never let go. She wraps me in these kingdoms, lays down the sea across my back. She arches, presses national boundaries into my hips. When she sleeps, I imagine falling into the universe that binds me in winding gold.

My sheets feel damp lately. In the night we twist.

• The Mammoth Book of Inside the Elite Forces (Mammoth Books).
• Susannahs Saviors [Becketts Wolf Pack, Triad Mates 3] (Siren Publishing Menage & More)!
• Cultures of Addiction.

I wrap the wheel in knuckles. I labor under accidental titles: Clutch me less— hold me like Wednesday fingers on familiar mug. Stay long enough in the mornings to watch sunrise ferment between rooftops. Maxwell Sean lives with his climbing partner and his cat in Columbus, Ohio. He spends most of his time trying to get the right books into the hands of his students.

Her latest poetry collection is entitled Catch a Lover Falling. She was educated at the universities of Delaware and Michigan, taught at the college level, and traveled extensively. She now lives in Robert Penn Warren country where she draws inspiration. On her website , she blogs about Post-structuralism and Poetry. Sometimes he does his poetry live at an open mic. He lives with his wife Flavia near Chicago, where he likes walks along the canal, exploring the wonders of Milwaukee Avenue, the music of Thelonius Monk and Bud Powell. But not here, not now, and certainly not in the tumult of your dream, where you told me you could be anything you damn well pleased even a bride, though you knew I could not abide.

But why then bring me here so far from home, only to leave me cemented in my shoes as you show me the door, in blue lights for the holidays, causing such sighing in passersby so I can hardly breathe in the dark, the oxygen depleted, my nose pressed against the sidelight and then the futile scratching at your door? So much so that I am prepared to say fuck you, to all those nutritionists and make cold pizza my everyday diet. And just because I know that stirring lentils together is more thrilling than the wildest thrill ride should I make lentils part of my daily diet too?

Pizza and lentils together, like you and me. And then curling up on the bed with you, stroking your hair I will have to try my best to fight the sleep because falling asleep seems giving up this moment, when the street lights enter through the windows and just your contours are visible, and I cannot see your face only feel the warmth of your breath on my cheek and I wonder did Shakespeare know of this when he wrote his love sonnets?

When not at his day job, he chases after his two cats. Our bodies, being in perpetual motion, bear the brunt of our pent-up passion. My soul, softened by the sensual, sweetened by the fullness of savory kisses. Your heart, penetrable, pulsates to the rhythm of our nuptial bed.

Surely we could live in this moment forever. The weeping of a child. Our hearts sink under the weight of a sigh. We deny ourselves for love of him. Despite the obvious frustration, delightful adoration drenches my vacant heart as I regard our babe held close. Here lies the full extent of our love pressed up against your breasts. His work has previously appeared in the Magical anthology, the Dia de los Muertos anthology, and Inscape.

He is currently seeking a home for his debut novel. He lives in Topeka, Kansas, and is a librarian by day. I was the most crazy naked, nearer-my-god-to-thee naked gal you ever saw. And I was the most happy person in the whole of the farm. I remember it like it was today which I think it maybe is. When I was at Woodstock I ate only rainbow cake and drank only lilac wine.

When I was at Woodstock I was miles high and my happy self touched the sky. I met Jimi Hendrix and , he said, in his Voodoo Chile style ………………….. When I was at Woodstock I sent a telegram to Joni Mitchell, which, I believe, she still has with her by way of memorabilia. When I was at Woodstock I was so naked. I was as naked as naked can be. Like you are in dreams. I was more naked than the thesaurus, more naked than a Hummingbird more naked than a man sat learning acoustic guitar, more naked then a smouldering lit cigar.

A story wears high heels and a play is nothing but trouble. A poem is a naked person. When I was at Woodstock, I was a god damn poem. I want to be a poem in a bowl of yellow irises. I want to be at Woodstock with half a million strong. I remember it like it was tomorrow. And yesterday, rolled into one. When I was at Woodstock. I was a musical note with no end. My feet were guitar riffs and my hands were ukuleles. My two eyes were dancing newts and, my lips were a violin , unstrung.

When I was at Woodstock all the blue colours drifted down from the sky and filled my body, through and through. I was so naked, I was blue blue blue. I want to be at Woodstock. Spend all of my life there. Can you fix it for me..?? I want to be at Woodstock when the end heaves into view. Helen Burke is a poet turned artist; her work has exhibited in the UK and France; she currently has an exhibition in Leeds, England.

Her art can be seen on krazyphils. Your oak desk, medical books, spartan bed all declare you missing. As I wander from room to room your photographs begin to darken. The bass voice of Alexander Kipnis declares you missing. I search for words to describe your absence. Strands of metaphors to make me whole. Her second collection, Solace , is forthcoming from Five Oaks Press in Your laptop flashes fantasies across your sleep deprived face, smile and frown lines evident. I press and knead the foot placed trustingly in my lap.

I can see your tensions melting away, and when your smile flashes, so does mine, because I get a glimpse of you again, the woman I love. Then, the dog farts. Insults are hurled, along with pillows at the retreating, offending end. The laughter ends with you in my arms, just one more time, just a few minutes more, and I feel your warmth again, the woman I love. He has a few short stories and poems published in collections in the US and the UK. I will write her virgin name.

I do not want that she would feel any closeness while reading it. I do not want that she would feel my body while reading my words. I do not want to give her any excitement. What should I write in my letter? I do not want to write her- the words generally husbands use. I also do not want to remind her the sacred vows we took on our marriage. I will write her virgin name; I will write my name thereafter. Her name with my name- Dear Gargi, yours Amitabh- will be my love letter. His research interests include language documentation, writing descriptive grammars, and the preservation of rare and endangered languages in South Asia.

His most recent books are A Grammar of Hadoti Lincom: Munich, , A Grammar of Bhadarwahi Lincom: Munich, , and a poetry collection titled Chinaar-kaa-Sukhaa-Pattaa in Hindi. As a poet, he has published more than poems in different anthologies, journals and magazines worldwide. His poetry collection titled Something Lurks It Seems is forthcoming U carried oxygen thru my capillaries.

I saw an old pathway I thought was covered in forestfoliage. There were freshfootprints my dear! He is currently working on his first novel and a chapbook of experimental poetry. Stalk him at philipelliottfiction. From underneath my thermal socks, hairs rise. From inside my knee pits, sweat builds. From under the zipper of my blue jeans, penis throbs. From within my underwear, testicles tingle. From under the logo of my jeans, cheeks tremble. From within my stomach, butterflies flutter. From above my stomach, navel widens. From underneath my yellow button-down shirt, nipples harden.

From underneath my chest, heartbeat quickens. From within my throat, lump builds. From between my eyes, intuition heightens. From within my teeth, smile brightens. From under my head, pillow comforts. From around my wrists and ankles, ropes bind. From above the bed, you climb. From on top of my groin, you mount. From under your behind, you straddle. From under your fingertips, you stroke. From under my black sweater vest, fingers tickle.

From under the laughter, lungs expand. From under the palms of your moving hands, I melt. From under your entire body, trust forms. From between our chests, tightness ensues. From within your embrace, I surrender. From kissing your lips, eyes dilate. From lying spread eagle on the bed, senses intensify. From you loving me, I reciprocate. From you laying on top of me, I rest. Freedman is a poet and spoken word artist from Staten Island, NY.

He is the author of a book of poetry titled Serotonin Seas. His most recent creation are the chapbooks, Never Lick the Spoon and Tobias. In his spare time, Jack likes to garden, sketch, cook, and attend open mic poetry events throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Like I was there and not at once. A thread of glitter. I tricked you into thinking I fuck the way I live. When you pulled back the seat, I think of the summer of You were just like that, wet and mine and ghost whisper cling on the neck.

I could say I did not mean to go or that I did not think I would go. You are too beautiful to lie to. It would be like lying to a sunset. So yes I mean to leave. I also mean to stay summer memory hazy, the one story, maybe a faint scar you never tire of explaining.

I plan to live like this always here and not here. Dying but not dead. Fucking but not fucked. Just gets up and goes. Old fries and loose coins attach to the underwear, shifting from garbage to ornament in one motion. The moment we sized each other up on the dancefloor — Two vultures mistaking the other for dead. And what does it mean to love him? And what becomes of the skin, once the snake has shed it?

And if it is, is it so hard to imagine it loving itself? And in that desert you are water. She opens her mouth and out sputters a song, few live to hum later. A tune passed on from a gut instinct gone wrong. An old affection that has aged into cruelty. A young desire rotted into adult demands. A disgrace only the mother could love. She is for sure a friendly neighborhood hope dealer. She is a touring artist and has been published a few times. She likes to eat. Up the Staircase Quarterly nominated one of her poems for best new poet I can picture the resulting tangle of our legs, ritual, no real meaning, the same way headphone wires find each other inside of a jacket pocket.

You walk around back and catch a frame of me undressing it in the second floor window, bathed in shitty, flickering light. I pretend not to see you. You pull everything out, so innocent. Each layer of stale gauze is soaked through and rancid, reeking of egg rolls and flat beer, sweat and crusted over coffee-mug bottoms. And then, you reveal it: For a moment you just squint into the blood-caked border of the thing, consumed by some kind of sick awe.

This is the worst part, the being exposed. Slice by slice you slough off the layers of yourself. I shut my eyes but still hear each piece slopping onto the floor, onto the other pieces. I can tell the cuts are clean. You plug the cracks with the stringy excess, wasting nothing.

I only hear you struggle once, when you tear the gauze wrapping from the roll before winding it around my trembling body, using the extra on yourself. I wake up in a half-empty bed, but while making my breakfast I notice the tiny paring knife has already been washed and left drying in the rack.

Claire crumples foil, watches neighbors bend and sag over so much care—well-cooked meals, clean floors, sex twice a month. The woman next door watches Claire spread her selves across the yard. A black lace bra, ripped below the nipple; a red thong blooming; a pastel floral push-up; a pair of thin, cotton panties. The microphone swells towards her mouth like the men she brings home from work. No more drinking kamikazes or smoking on the sly. She dreams of crystal catching the rose of her spotlight, the smell of gardenias, a three-piece band, and the soft ache of hand against hand.

She smells the raw salt decay. She cries on the way home, stops to buy flowers. They buy her Appletinis and cheap wine. Lori Gravley grew up in Niceville, a small town in the panhandle of Florida. These poems are from an unpublished chapbook titled Interior Designs. She is still recovering from the madness engendered by what she saw as she watched Southern women live their loves.

Justin Hyde lives in Iowa. Kamryn Kurtzner is a poet residing in Palo Alto, California. Later, when at lesbian U-Haul speed, I packed my things, called my friends, collected my cats, and moved out after committing a moving in violation: Twelve years later, when I was sitting off the side of Ormond Road, Michigan blue lights flashing in my rearview mirror. I smiled at the implication. I was traveling too fast on my way to see Kathy — maybe this ticket is worth the price knowing that speeding to see her is a much better omen than speeding away. I try to peddle slow with you into this new territory: Then you call me honey or darling and I feel like letting go of the handle bars trusting this new balance will carry me safely onward.

Lylanne Musselman is an award winning poet, playwright, and artist. In addition, Musselman has twice been a Pushcart Nominee. Musselman is the author of three chapbooks, with a fourth forthcoming, Weathering Under the Cat , from Finishing Line Press. She also co-authored Company of Women: I want to tell you that he ended up paying for my time. I want to tell you about a time outside that motel room. I want to tell you that I know I would have taken it. Sarah Nichols is a co-editor for Thank You for Swallowing , an online journal of feminist protest poetry. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Originally from Jonesville, Va.

Lydia paints on a charming smile; she knows Real Lydia is limp. Lydia is shocked to hear the familiar voice. Real Lydia shouts now, I want to hold him, I want to know him. She screams at Lydia, Stop pretending to be Real Lydia. Help me come out. So long, best wishes. He loves books and Anime in that order.

He has had some of his muddled thoughts published in a few e-magazines. But I want you as if these thousand yesterdays were simply seconds, as if I can feel your fingers from only last night. Virginia Archer is the pen name of a very busy lady who has a BEng. She was born in the UK, but has lived most of her life on the tropical island paradise of Saint Lucia, where she currently resides with her tween daughter.

You can find more of her poetry at https: I got it the day we went swimming, the last swim of the summer. You had me hold your wet boxers like a flag on the back of your bike, flowing in the wind as we drove home. But my knee scraped across the rocks and now I have this mark, I have this scar. It was the day you told me you loved me, the only time you voiced it. And the two weeks that it lingered with me before you took it back, before you made it seem like less than, it washed over me, through me, and I finally felt at ease.

Timeline of LGBT history

The way I thought you felt for months, possibly more than a year, had finally been confirmed. At least for those two weeks, until you were too scared to let it be. Until you had to go back on what you said. Because, that, being out in the open, is earth shattering. So now I look at this scar, and I fear that it will fade. It was just a light scratch. I want it there. I want it forever. To remember the day you told me you loved me.

You already took it back, but the scar is my reminder. I need that reminder. Or is what I feel for you a special breed? Because one second I feel my heart swell when I see you, and the next I feel crushed beneath your words. Does all love make you feel insane? Or are you just great at driving me that way? Does all love make you cry? Or am I just prone to tears? Does all love come with fear? Or are we just cowards?

Katie Blanchette is a staff reader for the literary journal Spark Anthology and has worked in copywriting for four years. We pick at tobacco threads between teeth and cradle cold gun metal, etched with fingernails. We take comfort in the familiar and the familial; the last of the scent soaked into the last letter she sent. Simon Cockle is a poet and writer from Hertfordshire, England. He was invited to read at the Ledbury Poetry Festival in England this year.

He teaches English in a local secondary school where he edits their literary magazine, The Thinkery. He is also a musician and songwriter; and clearly now, in light of recent events, is on the more direct path to a Nobel Prize for Literature. Not with trees to walk under, their fragrant sap wanting only to drip drunkenly from above. Seventeen, and foolish, your mouth is open yelling poems at whoever walks by. Only trees and the shy woman who says she will never love you but does anyway— until you fall under the spell of more sappy trees and call yourself lover once again to leaves, branches, mirrors, and poems and novels that never call you by your right name.

If a lover like you, met a lover like me, wounded and out of breath — out of words, out of steam, out of excuses — imagine the infinite possibilities of sadness. Some hearts are not meant to be homes. But you, you were the hardest to get over. You made a space for yourself in my head.

By nightfall, the putrefaction was complete. These long periods of waiting and wanting are a waste of my resources. Cooters need to be coddled. Pussy cats need to hiss and spit and purr and mew. I come to you riding tidal waves. I come promising to make the stone walls in your body, sing. I come bearing spices in the abyss between my legs.

I come flying on fallen wings as they cruise the sky collecting moondust on the way. I am a flower, over-ripe and pungent. My orchid is ripe for plucking. You are the key. This waiting will ruin me. I have spare keys. I am good enough myself, to go downtown and get me going. Elvis may have left the building, but Edith is coming home tonight. This kitty, will roar.

One could hear it move in a silence that was overpowered only by the noise of our tongues as flesh met flesh. We watched each other suck the flesh off the seed, slurpingly, hungrily, and riveted. We continue to eat. An invitation is extended. Can they see the naked lust that runs in circles behind my breasts? Can they see the lonely love that sits crying in my bones? Can they see the utter shame that burns behind my eyes? But regardless, I still do. Her other passion is theatre. Not enough of us live here for it. I simply sprinkle the soiled pads and things into their bin, half-exposed.

I learned this recently and from myself alone. Since she could read, Mackenzie Dwyer has known a longing to make a mark on literature. But another landmark decision of hers was to drop out of marksmanship Junior Olympics qualifying rounds to go earn her black belt and a concussion. He does not see me with lights on just shapes. He knows what to do. He is okay with not seeing me. I was not okay. I opened and he looked. He could see me and I am sixteen, inexperienced virgin.

I ask if it hurts. I close my eyes and wait. He thinks I am waiting for a kiss. I am blocking myself from seeing him, seeing him look at me the way he was looking at me like I was beautiful like I was a woman or something. It is six years later. He is seeing me again with clothes on wondering if I will take them off. She said each time I talked to him I lost something else. When I stopped talking to him for a while, out of my own needs, she noted color coming back to my face and that I smiled a real smile again. I told him no twice but he still thinks I want to be on my knees in my heels servicing him in any and every way.

I told him no, dream about me in my wine colored heels with dick sucking lips to match. Ashley Elizabeth is a something poet from Baltimore who draws inspiration from her city, her people, her space, and her body. She has been featured in the online journal Rose Water. Short chunks of stone we put together afterward into a smooth stream.

And I put you together with love, which is not in pieces, but a lifetime. David Flynn was born in the textile mill company town of Bemis, TN. His jobs have included newspaper reporter, magazine editor and university teacher. His literary publications total more than one hundred and ninety. His web site is at http: Her newest collection , Interval: A new book, A Doubtful House , which the above poem comes from, will be out in Sheri Gabbert lives in the small town of Mount Vernon in Southwest Missouri, in the Ozarks; she has lived there since She is a substitute teacher but has been a professional writer.

She has written for small town and county newspapers, Magazine, Street Buzz and has had poems published in Moon City Review and new graffiti. Better not wait for my wedding I never find enough flowers unsevered close to the earth that cast no self-fulfilling shade.

Mori Glaser grew up in the UK and moved to Israel 30 years ago. She has blogged and written material for non-profits. He drifts to sleep thinking of the possibility of a life of insignificance in that second rate village with a woman believing he hung the moon every evening after the bocce game by the fountain in the square. The man smoking a cigarette on his patio thinking how he wants to be with someone else somewhere else. The woman washing dishes inside, lips silent where once there was a song. Nothing in particular just a song that moonlight can no longer raise in her heart.

Robert Halleck fills his retirement years with open mike poetry readings, hospice volunteering, and racing Marlene, his old but still sturdy Porsche. In recent years his poems have appeared in the San Diego Poetry Annuals and a number of other interesting places that show up in a Google Search. Otherwise, he is a UK-qualified shipping lawyer living and working in Greece.

Hand over hand hot soft we climb the ladder of we, the ladder disappears we are fire eating each other with everything and grace such detailed grace, the signatures of flame. Eyes raising eyes, mouth mouth, belly belly long ago your warm wet cock became my engine air air, two voices drawing signs in it a long way off; In the fire I have become a new, intelligence unknown before, different than youandme, but is becoming only light. We go back clean, our bodies boats at anchor all but still.

Louise Larchbourne is also an actor, an editor, and a sometime lexicographer. She was one of the poets invited to contribute to the new anthology For Jeremy Corbyn. She has a trullo in Puglia. I stretch in my chair and my heart goes ranging out of me looking for your essence; the deeper something I can never break into, the hidden something you keep back. I can only hope it is beautiful. I am eating large, green olives, pushing my tongue inside, searching for the red, soft pimento and sucking them out one after another, swallowing them whole.

I crush rubbery bodies between molars; glands twinge from the bitter. Instead, you kneel on sweating summer linoleum, slowly move your hand to lift the edge of my sundress. Earlier—we baked our swollen bodies in July sun, stood with friends, sucked melting ices from wrinkled thumbs. When I jumped headlong into the blue-green pool, you followed.

My hands finding your neck, I licked your ear while you clutched my thigh in the water. We knew then what we wanted. Now, it is here—silence crushing us with its howl. You rest your day-stained head in my lap. I feel the moistened breath, salted air, longing in your fingers. I slide from the chair to the floor; you pop me into your mouth. As a licensed social worker, Muuss specializes in the use of the arts as a healing mechanism for trauma survivors. I held my breath while I crossed the border. He maneuvers my Hyundai Spaceship to a town he hardly knows.

I am no help. He laughs, says not to worry. Allison Paster-Torres was raised by a pack of wild libraries. She knows how to spell at least ten words in the English language, and can easily be talked into doing almost anything if you tell her it will be an adventure, even if this is obviously a lie. Should you feel so inclined, you may find her at Facebook. You always reminded me of songs, of sense within sound: People are so unattractive when sex has become uninteresting. Outside of poetry, his path has been quite various, and he has made my way through things like software engineering, information science, and labor.

I was swollen and could not perform well for you for a few days and for that master I am so sorry. I felt cool vanilla and chocolates pouring over me and numbing the pain I felt. Pretty soon I had healed and so had your urge for another hangover. Out we went, just like every night. You and your same buddies, Britney or Madonna surrounded me in a muffled haze.

Tonight seemed to be all about limes, I tasted a lot of citrus this particular eve. I heard a new voice and met a new friend. He and I exchanged a lot of saliva and words while you pushed me into his home. I visit a lot of people like me. Master you must have a lot of friends. This night I got to know this mate very well. We grazed each other in a wet hello and discussion about our different problems with our masters. He marveled at my addition, I prided him on how well you treated and cared for me to allow me to look this fancy.

Then we said our goodbyes while you used my addition to rub up and down his erected shaft. I love the sensations this metal contraption has given not only me but other creatures. You love to please others and so do I. After this adventure you rolled off this nameless stranger and let water river over me. Blake Barringer was born, raised, and lives in St. Louis, where he studies English at the University of Missouri St. He spends his free time reading, writing, vinyl collecting, or attending many concerts.

He is a mega fan of Madonna and Gwen Stefani. She lives with her husband and three cats and travels the world whenever she gets the chance. I stand by my misanthropy. As such, performance poetry spoken word delights, because so much of it is about social justice in its manifold forms — even in sex and love.

Also, in spoken word there is a good deal of room for a rude joke and an honest complaint. I open my mouth to taste the muddy summer air. A pink rose tonight, something dusky. One finger to my palm, one finger to his boutonniere. Three petals in my hand, already browning: He will stay tomorrow. When the ship moves out? String the night with open fists. Alicia Cole is a writer and visual artist in Huntsville, AL. You can find her work at www. I said yes; this, perhaps, was her signal. I just visited home, no longer excommunicated. We shopped, gossip swapped, and I, in the end, learned that sacred is as sacred does.

Do not yield to expectations of relations who do not sanction you. I once taught Algerian military men, taught them how to speak and pen English. They had wives at home, wives following ancient religious tome, banned from restaurants alone or flaunting pretty cheekbones. They had wives and girlfriends who waited years in their head coverings, who grew dates with their in-laws hovering near. Opinions can sear, but no matter the geographic location, the spiritual persuasion, the rules of homestead or traditions, love is still knitted in committed forever.

It cannot be severed. My wife and I are opposites. I read fiction and poetry, lit. I cry at lost kittens and she tells me I cannot bring them home—no matter how smitten. I may speak less-than-love, throw myself on the bed and cry. But I always try again. This is marriage, too. This is human, me or you. Marriage means those deleted scenes may include one spouse being hangry and rude, the other tired and in such a mood that the first might hide inside a closet.

What can I do for you? Real love grows daily, plays fairly, apologizes and, yes, occasionally mesmerizes, still, after decades. I did not know who I could be, how I could see peripherally before those vows. There is no greener grass, there is no all encompassing pass to happiness, but I will confess my wife is nothing less than my forgiveness-wrapped better half. She is married with two children. Too much product on too little hair.

Robert Ford lives on the east coast of Scotland. More of his work can be found at wezzlehead. Our lives are so common, becoming ever more boring, and we cringe at the tedium and pretend this is all still fun. I adore the disease that we share, eating our hearts out and drinking the juices of our spite, trying to find the thing we lost, held most valued. Breathing the fumes of the tar that holds us together, my love for you will never end. On Twitter Deranged2 and Facebook and Amazon. Michele Leavitt, a poet and essayist, is also a high school dropout, hepatitis C survivor, and former trial attorney.

Next June , you tell me in the same breath as I like him a lot — the way another word stumbles out of your mouth before the previous one is finished like our steps two Junes ago, running and jumping into lakes faster than our minds could remind us that we could not rely on the cold to appease our desire for embrace. We craved that brief moment of forgetting, suspended in air, asking will this last? Still, uncertainty was easier to take if doubt had no time to threaten the slow of my running start, which is why I said I love you too before your lips could wrap around you.

Meaning the fall was over — a happy ending until my arms grew tired of treading water. Now, your voice echoes on the other side of the phone line like a face of forgotten belonging. She wants to have the wedding in Cabo. You pause, and I can feel your eyes sighing into me from miles away — that look of trying to comprehend the existence of what is before you.

Only the hum of static from you in response, obscuring your intent as it ripples the air like a body landing feet-first in the river. I cry to this song , you tell me.

Books Pdf Free Download Sites. | Page 10

I am sorry to even imagine the word. This is letting my muscles memorize how it feels to hold another so that each time I wipe a tear from my face, I think of my hands tracing your outline. I remember how for one moment, there was no loss, how for one moment, I had something to lose. Allie Long is an economics and English double-major at the University of Virginia. Read more of her work at alliesanxietydiaries.

The music gets to me, so I cave in. Three times we dance around this tiny space in silent swirls and turns and contra checks to the frivolous swish of this Strauss waltz past piles of cans and coal and the unheated stove, my hand splayed on your narrow back, and flexed. So instead of facing reality we play pretend, practice being real artists: Jordan Makant is a junior history major at Lenoir-Rhyne University with a minor in creative writing. Jordan hopes to volunteer, travel, and write after he graduates from college, and intends to go to graduate school at some point after that.

I find you naked. I am myself naked, amazed, a shimmer, wretched, soft. What can I do blinded and mute. Bewildered you keep your gaze ferocious, devouring the dark, your sex wet and hurting with the memory of your first ejaculation, your lips no longer in need of the child you were. Your way of being licks me like a dog. I extend my hand towards your thighs and blow by blow they separate, and meet, and turn into a fiery gap in turmoil on the bed sheet.

Take me, kneel, part your lips from my sex. Come back, hurtle, howl, slit the darkness and rain inside me! I was the feathered comet tail of your what-could-have-been. Ortiz is the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a Best of the Net nominee.

He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard. You can see his other work here and here. She is background noise the song you hate but know every word. His poem and fiction have appeared in more than publications across the globe. And now she lies hugging the bosom of her lover through all eternity.

Rad lives in New York City. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications. Now charity bags filled with possessions drawers emptied, a sob-wrecked separation. Leela Soma was born in Madras, India and now lives in Glasgow. Her poems and short stories have been published in a number of anthologies and publications, including the National newspaper The Scotsman, and in Gutter magazine, New Voices, The Grind , and Visual Verse and upcoming in Steel Bellows.

Her work reflects her dual heritage of India and Scotland. In response to your recent email thank you for the invitation. The point is, I am having an affair with a married man whose wife will not make love anymore, though I sometimes question his story. Also he seems to exhibit signs of erectile dysfunction from time to time. Lucky for him, I am a good scout in such matters, or a witch, laying hands on dead body parts, making them rise again. Still, in the interest of decency, I advise you against trying to see me again, reminding you the Titanic sank during a party.

To whom it may concern: I ask that you be punctual as my schedule is tight and tricky at best. I may have my issues, but I am not a sure thing. It was an interesting evening I must confess. By the way, good luck with your wife and her sister.

Navigation menu

I hope last night was good for you; sadly, for me, it was not. Still, in the spirit of charity I wish you the best of luck asking you to please delete this message and my email address from your computer history. And not to be unkind, but a thought worth mentioning here, you might want to see a specialist, a psychiatrist I think, for that anger management problem you displayed last night on my face.

She is currently working on a collection of poems entitled Snakes in Trees from her home in Texas. I purse my lips and swallow hard, filling my belly with orphan kisses that cry for you. They flutter from breast to thighs under the guise of pot roast and lemon meringue pie. And I dream that I would wear you like an apron while serving dessert to our husbands. We are not cozy, intimate or comfortable. This is table talk. The spring air is mixed with the smell of egg foo yong; the decorations of Chinese lanterns and calendars seem too happy for the occasion.

He left that day looking bitter and sullen. I, settled and resolute. The slip from my fortune cookie: Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life. Bonaventure University where she studied Victorian poetry and prose. She is the director of the Twin Tiers Writers Workshop, a group in western New York that meets weekly to turn prompts into prose and has been published in Mom Egg Review. On the way she and I drank beer even though I was six.

How could anyone explain? Texas, my floor faced a mirror propped against a wall. I lay where they stood to inspect themselves before departure. We sat on the floor. She wore a bow. I gave her to the nurse. She lives in Alabama with her husband and three cats. He bends to clip a potted miniature red rose.