She Gets Even

I couldn’t breathe
fury stretched high
reached down from the recesses of the dark
and threw its fists like angry lava into the sky

I couldn’t wait
to see if it was coming up that hill
I was going down in the small hours
I was losing form in a formless haze

I couldn’t see
the ashes fell like dirty snow against my eyes
this is California
where the earth knows how to get even
and laughs her revenge into the night.

___________________________

©2009 Lori Titus

 

Negative Spaces

I dwell within pauses and memories and negative sounds

 I exist off the heat of empty spaces.

 I tease, and tempt, and threaten to drown you whole.

 My words so sweet but filled with vile things, they bubble in your chest,

They spread wide like demons wings. You praise these works of your imagination, which you call the truth, but really, you only court me, so I can suck the bitterness from your tongue.

I exist, on the edge of what you don’t want to see, and what you’d like to believe.

 I’m the thing that lives in negative spaces.

___________________

©2010 Lori Titus

 

I am with You

Chimes on the wind

a melody in the air

the warmth of sunlight slanting through a window

and I am with you

just the faintest shadow of a touch

a memory

I whisper

and only silence answers back

I am loved

your heartbeat

moves with mine

your blood races like mine

just a memory of your

warmth

and the scent of your skin

makes me whole again

and I am with you.

———————

©2008 Lori Titus