give me two minutes.

what if I am

just running in place

still circling back to our own

familiar and situational tragedy

back to late summer into the fall

the way I let your eyes pin me down

the way your coy hesitation

is still sneaking through my door

back to being drunken on

this spell that ignites

between us as you nervously

remove your jacket, back to you

yielding and shy and tender

while you proceed to grip

my jeans and peel off my clothes

back to me feeling helpless

and you cannot possibly love her

back to I know why you are here

and you are in denial

the way you are circling

like a beautiful wolf, or a

moth to a porch light

back to stop lying to yourself

and what if it is you

back to who deserves this magic

and this is the truth,

not what you go back to

© 12.12.16 heather brager

little white lies.

while we lie awake, nursing

our intrinsic fabrications

each association fragile, subjective

this liquid want with teeth

and confusion with soft skin

just speak the truth, confront

the fear chasing you down

wait patiently for the explanation 

you have already accepted lie, upon lie

then your beautiful face, your arms in total

darkness, indistinguishable from hope,

she can see clearly through

the air that quietly cradles deceit

the soundtrack steadily building,

waiting for the next projection

with vulnerability processed as data

a blatant delusion, of passion becoming

enough, or even something like truth

© 12.1.16 heather brager

you may never know.

she carries crooked years
tucked neatly in both pockets

hands full of hard lessons
trailing behind like crumbs

she is not lost and
does not beg to be found

she will feed you and quietly
watch you sleep on her pillow

with splinters and hope
she will be gone by dawn


© 11.19.16 heather brager

things I don't say.

whether or not
you comprehend, I can
see through the beautiful
skin stretched
across your chest
to the cells colliding
behind your rib cage.
you think you
control your heart
the direction that
blood flows, the valves
and complex mechanisms
that make you stand
here in my kitchen
wondering what it
is that you want
my fingers long
to slide behind your
ribs and wrap
themselves around
feel the gentle pulse
to solve all of the
mysteries of
this moment
but don't worry, I will leave
it there because it
doesn't belong to me.

© 11.15.16 heather brager

everything you pretend to be.

why would he hesitate

her flesh beneath

the quiet beauty 

a quivering projection 

from somewhere overhead

without a forest floor

emptiness left downwind

skeletons reduced 

to pieces in a puzzle

his face turned south 

abandoned structures 

neglected grass calling  

shadows of canis lupus

her coat pale in moonlight

protecting his throat

© 11.11.16 heather brager

color.

now she may not be convinced that

you sense or observe the world

with the same spectrum of longing

though she willingly would

have taught you to breathe in aqua

and weave cerulean blue to the

rhythm of the salt lamp and vinyl

stroking the brilliantly acute contrast of

your skin deeper than marrow

she may have even come

undone and drifted a scarlet

bird over rippling water the

leaves fluttering close to autumn

though she was not persuaded that

you understood her language or

could grasp burning alchemy with

your soul tangled in the mires

of acceptable mediocrity

now she may know stories that you

never hear and see the complex

unraveling tied to choices that

have not yet come to be

though it will never truly matter if

the strands of her hair slipped softly

though your fingers and

the forgotten cerise mandala

never made its way into your pocket

© 10.27.2016 heather brager

siren.

I wish I knew that song
the one she played you like a fool
fabricated irresistible notes and bent
time in a gravity defying arc
that speaks words I have not learned
I can only offer my hands
knowledge I have gathered to my chest
an armful of autumn wheat
gentleness I have left
like pebbles to the trail home
so keep the pieces you have saved
the bucket of curved shells and 
lifeless flowers slumped dry
now that the water has evaporated
while I send another song

© 10.20.2016 heather brager