Laceandpaper - Lace And Paper

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.

Sometimes

Sometimes I wish you hadn’t died.

You left him so broken, beyond repair.

It was all I could do to keep him afloat,

treading water, a burden too heavy

for me to lift. You left him drowning

in unspoken love, unable to let go of

a deflated life preserver.

Sometimes I wonder what you’d think of me.

If you could would you thank me or would

you tell me that I could never heal him?

It was my job to gather the wreckage

you left behind. I taught him to love again,

but I could never teach him to let go.

I could never empty the ocean of hurt.

Sometimes I believe we could have been friends.

He clung to me too, driftwood in the open sea.

We must have something in common. He said

he thought I would like you. Even when his

heart was sore and his lungs were filled,

drowning in the memory of you. Friend,

can I tell you a secret?

Sometimes I hate you more than anything.

I hate what you did to him. I hate that no matter

how far away you are he can’t let go of you.

I hate that he will always love you, how he

doesn’t know how not to love you. I hate

you for dying – not that you chose to die. I wish

you had chosen. Maybe then he’d accept it.

Sometimes I feel like the other woman.

He’s still swimming through the waves,

fighting the current to get to you as if he

doesn’t realize you’ve already been pulled under.

I try to bring him back to shore, to my safe

harbor, but he’s still anchored in you.

Sometimes I think you are selfish.

When you had him you took him for granted,

and yet you held him tight enough to keep

him clinging to you like a buoy out at sea,

clinging to you for air. And now he still clings.

You can’t tell him to let go. Not that you would.

Sometimes I wish he had never met you.

Sometimes I am happy that you’re dead.

Sometimes I wish you never existed.

Lone Tree - Rachel Schneider

Medium: 

Calligraphy pens on paper

New Years Eve - Rachel Schneider

Medium:

Prismacolor Pencils and Sharpie on Paper

Gas Prices Skyrocket

He bluffed, “It’s the cheapest you’ll find a vintage sports car.”

She huffed, “It looks rather new for a vintage sports car.”

Love for the ages: soft, steady, slow, and sweet, or a

flame: fast, beautiful, and deadly, like a vintage sports car.

Pulling off her shirt she felt revealed, reviled, repulsive,

telling herself it’s not trashy if you do it in a vintage sports car.

Cherry red, blood red, red wood. Scattered under moonlight.

On the accident report they called it a vintage sports car.

Heaven forbid honesty! Hide your feelings, your secrets,

undercover. Like in the driveway, a vintage sports car.

Status symbols: a Rolex watch, a million bucks, a

yacht in the bay. Trade your wife for a vintage sports car.

The past thrown away, left to rot and not be remembered.

Left to decompose in a junkyard next to a vintage sports car.

Lost, lonely, loveless? Ditch the club, forget online dating.

One thing that can never leave you: A vintage sports car.

To escape your problems you must run far away.

My suggestion? Zero to sixty in a vintage sports car.

A gold-digging robbery! Get away with his money, his heart,

a license plate reading RAY-RAY on a vintage sports car.

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.

New Years Eve - Rachel Schneider

Medium:

Prismacolor Pencils and Sharpie on Paper

Away from Home

What do you get when you

erase the chalkboard, sweep up

the dust, and clap out the erasers?

The board gets a fresh start

while what was chalk becomes

dust, separated and scattered,

lost and alone.

I want to be the board.

I feel like the chalk.