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November sinks its icy fingers Between my shoulder blades And an ache blossoms inside of me. I imagine a lacy white filigree of frost Growing over my lungs, Spidering over my veins And up into my heart. The cold crawls up my throat So that when I breathe I half expect snowflakes and hoarfrost To fall from my lips. I've got an ice-heavy heart in me And I am breathing winter, Wondering if my tears would freeze If they even fell at all. Help me shake November's chill. Blaze passion and fire into me And never let me pull away from the heat of you Kiss away the rime of ice that coats me Sink your fingers into my skin So

"You have a stone in your heart," That rouses me somewhat. I look up from my book and out the window at the gray fog that's settled over everything like wet cotton. I imagine breathing it, letting it fill my lungs with gray. All at once, the room is suffocating and I push the window open and the cool air tumbles in and ruffles the pages of my book so that I lose my place. The spell of the story unravels and some part of me aches to know that the sort of love that exists in the storybooks is never true. She loves the lines of him. Her. "Are you listening?" "… Yes," I say without much conviction. Rainwater pools on the windowsill.

She can't handle being manhandled By all the pretty girls So it's best not to touch her at all.

I can't dance, Dreamgirl. Did you know that? I think Novembers will always hurt the most, unless maybe I meet you on the seventh or the fifth or your birthday falls around that time. That might be okay, I think. But I will always think differently in November. Explain this, please: It is December and cold and bright and perfect. It smells like woodsmoke and snow in the clouds and when she steps outside, she takes a deep, deep breath. But the air is too cold for her scarred insides and she starts to cough uncontrollably. Why doesn't she remember that cold air makes her lungs tight? Maybe she pretends not to remember. Or maybe she is preocc

There's a heady exhilaration blooming in my chest and a broad, triumphant smile on my lips and I know I look almost too happy, but I can't control my beaming, and I am absolutely bursting to tell you the news: That my essay was perfect, that I nailed the presentation, that the biochem final was a walk in the park. And, oh, God, I want to tell you so many things and that I love you and that I want you and I want to feel your arms around me, just barely containing my wild excitement. I want to laugh with relief and feel your lips curve up in a smile against the skin of my neck. And I love you, I love you, I love you. It's these moments w

I lost everything I was, true. But all I was I was for you. And, oh, Soldier girl, I wish you knew How I still cry To think of you

"I'm waiting, Miss Dickinson. Waiting, waiting, waiting," I say it all in a singsong voice and then dissolve into giggles because somehow the made up tune makes the laughter bubble up in my chest like champagne and I'm thinking of the time I got drunk on New Years and beat the girl I loved at gin and later poker even though the cards spun a little bit in my vision. "But I played 'em close to my chest," I smile up at the sky and am rewarded with a fat raindrop hitting me square in the eye and then another and another and I open my mouth and I imagine myself drinking the whole sky and being filled with blue. It wasn't New Years this year. It

It is nearly three a.m. on a Sunday and half the world is awake. Strains of the national anthem bounce off the alleyways and filter through my window. From my room on the sixth floor, I can see a group of inebriated revelers stumble past on their way from one bar to another. They laugh and shout and wave a great star-spangled flag above their heads. One boy is wearing pale blue-checkered boxers and little else. I turn away. Back to my room, which is dark and my roommate who is asleep, and to my bed where I have chased sleep with far less success for nearly three hours. I am supposed to be happy, maybe. Proud, at least. Tonight, of all night

I don't know if it's the smoke in my lungs or your lips on mine, but I swear I am floating in my own skin, so close to drifting away, just like the gray haze that spirals towards the ceiling But you hold me to you, deliciously too tight, as if you feel me falling away And with my hands locked around your wrists and the amber scent of you deep in my chest, I know I would not leave you. I will never leave you -- The mist is cool as it prickles over my skin, but it warms to the blood tumbling through the translucent blue veins of my wrists. The scent is sharper than I remember, harsh and biting, as though the amber curves are turning to ra