Minisode 25: Lumsden and Lowell: No Sex For a Week

Infection
A sharp pain lives here now; it bruises,
oozes, and swells into her jaw, draws
patterns on her neck and she can’t find
sleep anywhere. Unseeable things are

clawing at her gut, tearing their way out
into daylight. They split that thin skin and
burrow under the soft of her belly and bite
and burn with needles. She must burst.

Spencer
He presses into the gash on his hand,
trying to configure what he’s been through,
but it’s not there. Only a doleful, distorted
visage in the stainless steel bowl at Millburn.

They call it Missing Time, but he just
knows it’s the Blackness. All shadow, it
blinks in and out – blood, screams, gone.
He slams his hand against the cold metal

table, but he can’t remember. Only the knife is
there, and the drugs, and the unshavenness
of his chin. His palm is bleeding now; he’s
opened an old wound he does not recognize.

Spongy
We set rules for ourselves once.
So long ago, it seems,
and I can’t remember them now.

They come in bits and pieces,
Like a broken record,
An aging needle jumping around.

Never I Hate When, only I Would Prefer.
No sex for a week.
If you want me to pay, say so.

Arbitrary things, these rules.
Soft, too, like a house with sponge
for a foundation. It absorbed the

mounting winds of love, the seas
of tears seeping into the walls,
the ceiling sagging and saturated

with pain and heartache.
It’s no wonder that house crumbled.
I like our new home better.

House on Hill
The sun sleeps more now, but I know the way home;
twelve paces northeast,
And the moss whispers me directions, unnecessarily.
It is dark, and I can barely see Parson’s field.
In the summer, I might have passed Cooper, but he
Sleeps with the sun.
I walk with a purpose, listening to the crunch of
Brown leaves under my boot, snaking right and left;
I must squash all the leaves.
A single, unlit candle stands in the window,
My companion to welcome me. I am home, and the
scent of timber and jasmine blossoms fill my nostrils,
warm.

From Above
His arms have grown from twigs to logs;
Brambles topple over.
Velvet voice stolen by Obsidians.
But his unchanging eyes linger.

Changes
Perhaps now I might elect to change;
I would like to not be so plain.
Perhaps now I might elect to change;
Paler, pinker, plumper, -er, -er, -er.
I think I might be happy this way;
To sing to dance to worry not.
I think I might be happy this way;
Lively, springy, bubbly, -y, -y, -y.
To have and to hold;
Another person as partner.
To have and to hold;
Cherished, loved, joined, -ed, -ed, -ed.
Clothes,
Mind,
Friends.
There are many things that change,
But I cannot change me.