Benefits Of A Breakup

Soulmates

I worry that I do not live up to your past, but you tell me the practice is as much fun as the goal. This is not the awkward introduction, but the elusive intimacy that comes with connection. You guide me as a ship captain who loves his boat enough to go down with it. Feel you, feel me, feel we as if no me could exist without you. Lead me, love me. Touch like lightning electrifies my skin. In this moment freeze. Breathe. Release. You make me weak. I wish to hold on and never be free.

Glass Bottle Wrapped in Cloth - Rachel Schneider

Medium:

Graphite on Bristol Paper

Loitering

Smoke curls from the ashen tip

of a long-lit cigarette on a moonless night

The streetlamp light arcs through the rain

tiny diamonds disappearing to dust

He breathes out death, lungs burning

one more light will make it okay,

further from the end, another hour

for the pain to fade a little.

Smoke disappears like the rain in the

navy air, and yet the cool ice of her eyes

is all the more vivid in his empty mind.

Forward, The Only Way to Go

Rusty white with a big blue stripe,

the old pickup, a pick-me-up

in the shape of a flatbed truck.

He drives fast with the music blasting,

windows cranked down because the AC never works,

or maybe just to share his music with the world.

His voice pours out the window to the beat of a drum

as the pounding music rocks and swells

and brings the old radio back to life.

It’s an adrenaline rush, that old white truck,

and the driver inside. Four wheels, one heart,

flying on a song down the old dirt road.

With the blood of a cousin, the heart

of a friend, a protector, a brother, a guardian.

Wings hidden beneath thick skin, or rusty white paint.

The heart of freedom, a crazy heart.

A heart with no direction, a truck with no map.

Windows open, open heart.

Glass Bottle Wrapped in Cloth - Rachel Schneider

Medium:

Graphite on Bristol Paper

Pop the Trunk

My life fits in the trunk of a civic

as i slide down this highway

miles pass with minutes

the separation of past and present

a stark reminder of reality

of time space and missed

opportunities it seems that

plans fall through and who’s

to say what comes but may today

be the way to tomorrow

yesterday says hello to memory

and so it goes as we toast to the old

and bring in the new it’s

true i am scared of the future

and you can’t pretend that you don’t

feel the same we all have our

boxes inside our trunks

no one can comprehend but us

so i drive my civic and

take my life from point a to point b

trying to tell myself that somehow

i’ll see where i’m going.

Passerby

You know, I really love it when you pretend

that I don’t exist.

You climbed out of your car,

alone in the grocery store parking lot.

We made eye contact,

I almost dropped my bag of eggs.

You locked the car and zipped up your jacket

and jogged to the door, out of the cold

as if I never even existed.

Not even a smile?

The least you could do is acknowledge me.

My stomach clenches as

I shove food into my trunk.

My appetite is gone.

To Tokyo, With Love

Long lost lover living out

of sight, out of mind. I find myself

forgetting how it was to lay

eyes upon you, to lay beside

the water, to feel the soft caress

of your whispered words on my

waiting ear. Lover half a world away,

I no longer remember the sharp

glint of your smile, the sensuous

depth of your laughter. All I remember

Is your impossible perfection. Absence

makes the heart grow ill, poisons

memories to be larger than

love. Stay away lover, I fear

you’ll rob me of my love for your

image. I have broken a commandment;

I idolize your memory above you.

Lone Tree - Rachel Schneider

Medium: 

Calligraphy pens on paper

To Save a Wretch Like Me

Palms sweat thick as blood. I fold them so as not

to stain my skirt, too clean, too white. The wine of redemption

burns my throat, bitter next to the sweet sin so heavy on my

unholy mind. The call to confess crushes the

soul. There are no secrets left. I can’t look up, can’t

burn my eyes with the sight of his neck, red with the embarrassment

of awareness beneath a shock of blond. He sits two rows ahead,

his head bowed in humility, and I sink to the depths of the

earth, opening to swallow me beneath the altar before me,

drowning me in the tears of the women at the cross.

Confess?