Loitering

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.

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.

Temptation (Part One of To Save A Wretch Like Me)

The first part of the collection, To Save A Wretch Like Me, tells the story of the two lovers meeting and getting to know each other. It is during this section that the narrator, the girl, begins to question what she's been raised to believe, and pulls away from the familiar to join the boy on a path towards uncertain self-discovery.

New Years Eve - Rachel Schneider

Medium:

Prismacolor Pencils and Sharpie on Paper

Liar

You forced a laugh and told me

You were heartless

As your head fell into your hands,

Hiding a pained smile.

I’m glad you’re a liar.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Before our first date you bought me white lilies. I guessed you didn’t know the symbolism. But as the two of us become one for the who-knows-what time – you, deep inside me and I, clenched tight around you – I wonder if you did. Sometimes I feel as if we have become dead together. Your burning skin pressed against me, answering my need, no longer smells like cinnamon, only sweat. As your lips caress my collarbone, my breast, my navel you no longer taste strawberry, only salt. This four-story apartment building, box-shaped and bland, no longer is a stepping stone to a better life, but just another reminder of how our plans fell through. I remember the lilies as your hands squeeze my aching flesh, too warm for a corpse. The sun rises and the birds chirp and I convince myself that we are not yet dead. Even if that sun has long faded our yellow curtains. Even if we hardly speak. Even if you no longer call me liebe, though  we still make love. Even if your touch is the only thing I’m still living for.

T-Minus 21

Twenty-one guns in a sudden burst

he is number six and comes with

a false sense of security and unexpected

endings at no extra cost

run through the flowers to fall off the cliff

  Twenty past birth and settling too young

he is number five and he is easy he is

there he is sweet and he is kind

but he is not wanted

there is no hurt when the time runs out

  Nineteen and accelerating fast

he is number four and he is nothing she

has known before or ever expected

it’s only perfect to a point

so the crash and burn is all the harder

  Eighteen is self-centered and self-loathing

he is number three and he makes her feel

good but he is nothing that she wants

and little that she needs

it breaks her heart to crush his devotion

  Seventeen owns naivete in every color

he is number two and he takes the pale pink

of unearned trust and stains it dark red

with sudden abandonment

it is her first lesson in one-sided love

  Sixteen sweet doesn’t know any better

he is number one and he is her sun

and she is burned by his brilliance

brightness masking flaws

he is the high that will always be chased

  Fifteen to One and more lifetime lived

than the rest combined but somehow less

if they knew what was coming

Perhaps

they wouldn’t have rushed.

In the Snow - prismacolor pencil and whiteout on paper

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.

Sweetie

Love, your friend:

Sweetie, the roses are all dying now,

They’ve withered and faded beyond repair.

And though you water them I can see how

They still have gone, despite your watchful stare.

Sweetie, the roses have all bowed their heads,

A sign of goodbye in this cold, dark room.

The stems have gone black and their bodies shed

Their petals and leaves far into the gloom.

Sweetie, sometimes I think you are a rose

He’s drying you up petal by petal.

I watch you lie down and as your eyes close,

I see your heart is now withered, brittle.

Sweetie, you know deep inside this is wrong.

Inside your heart is not where he belongs.