the grey box.

she always loved his hands,
warm and strong and sure.

she flung herself
from the peak of
the highest roof in town
the morning after
that was all they could
send back to her.

trinket stories.

she knew she would love him
for the rest of her life
when he tipped her wire basket
onto the floor, rings, bracelets,
spilling across the carpet in
flashes of green stones and
purple plastic, red metal
rusting brown, and said,
"tell me the stories."

.

and for a time,

it was good.

so good.

      for a time.

sweet summer skin.

i think of you when pineapple turns my mouth sore,
the corners of my lips raw, i think of how
you would press your fingers into them,
they would taste like summer,
skin turned sweet.

layla wa majnun.

you called me your layla,

the famous love from days 

of old, your layla

and now, i spend each night

in a boundless, delicious

frightful state, terrified

that you will be my majnun. 

i pass by these walls,

the walls of layla.

expiration date: sooner than you think

sometimes, i open the fridge

and stare at its contents,

the milk two days too old,

the pumpkin i've been meaning

to make something with.

sometimes, i stand at the window

and stare at the light turning yellow,

and then pink, and then blue

sometimes, i look at someone

and my eyes stay there,

their face pulling like a magnet

sometimes i hear a word,

or a phrase,

or a part of a sentence,

and i feel like i'm on 

the precipice of something,

wildly, hugely, completely important.

then it passes.

i close the fridge. 

i have bruises on my body

left by ghosts,
and blood under
my nails
that is not mine.

whispers in my
ear, from
voices
i've never
heard

and a taste
in my mouth
that feels
like smoke.

i like things

to be a little bit ugly sometimes.

the day sorrow came.

It was nearly fall the afternoon Sorrow came to stay. Not to visit, but to stay. She didn't come unprepared, on the fly, with dusty hair and travel-worn shoes. She came for good, with bags in each hand packed to brim, ready for any occasion. 

Trousers and blouses and house clothes. Sequined dancing dresses and skimpy underthings, exercise shoes and shiny stilettos. A bag of its own just for bracelets and bangles, pendants and rings. Pretty things to dangle from the lobes of her ears and rest against the slope of her chest. 

Black. All of it in black. Black, black, black.

The pencil she lined her eyes with and the powder she brushed over her lids. The bottles, slender and graceful that held her perfume, the heaviness of each scent betraying its delicate bottle. Every item of her clothes and every piece of her jewelry. Every shoe in her trunk. Black.

She came at the time of year when the wind was still undecided whether to blow warm or cool. She came at the time of day that the sky was just splitting open, into reds and oranges, like a peach, bitten into after one day too long on the counter. She came at the hour when the whole farm, for miles either way, smelled faintly of old peaches. She came that year when your sister's cheeks reminded you of peaches, round and blushing bright. 

She came that time of year before the fall, when the air smelled like peaches and the sky looked like peaches, right after the last drop of sticky peach juice dripped from your sister's face to her hands to her feet. 

She came without invitation or welcome, with her black bags and black clothes and nothing was ever the same. None of you were ever the same. Right as the last drop of juice hit the dust, she came strolling into the yard. Her heavy perfume drowned out the smell of peaches, and it never came back. The sky always seemed to go from blue to black. 

honeysuckles.

She said she smelled honeysuckles. 

"There are no honeysuckles." 

"I smell them."

"Well, there aren't any." He followed her through the winding bushes anyway. "It's way too cold. It's not time for honeysuckles - you're out of your - "

He stopped as she turned around to face him, pale blossom in hand. He watched her pull the thin stem easily from the flower, and held it up to his lips. 

He felt confused, like a teacher had marked him wrong on a test, when his answer was right.

"It's - they can't be growing now - it's almost December - "

When she saw he wasn't going to take the stem, she brought it to her own mouth and sipped the syrup easily off. 

She let it drop to the ground and reached for another, shrugging as it if was simple, when it wasn't. 

"They're confused too."

"don't get taken."

best advice i've ever received.

10. 10. 10.

like a heartbeat.

"I am not worried, Harry,"

   said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you."

"It's . . . it's magic, what I can do?"

"What is it that you can do?"

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

-

Chill bumps raise like braille on my arms every time I read this.

"Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man!

This pain is part of being human - "

"THEN - I - DON'T - WANT - TO - BE - HUMAN!"

Already finished with the book, but I neglected to post this bit as I was reading through it. It had me in furious tears the first time I read it.

"Remember Cedric.

Remember, if the time should come when you have to make the choice between what is right and what is easy. Remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."

"I'm fine," said Harry,

wondering why he kept telling people this, and wondering whether he had ever been less fine.

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black.

"DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!"

I'm beginning Goblet of Fire now, but that was sticking with me. Felt like it needed sharing.