August 2011, First Selection

The Stage


Sitting in the middle of quiet timber
the moon- a perfect white peach
spying on us through late summer leaves.
You drank from the bottle
and I from a glass
guzzling the cheap red wine
to ease the twisting knots in our stomachs.

We read poems by Plath,
reciting each line loudly as if we were on stage
with only the stars as our audience.

The fire was never big enough for you
and as you frantically continued to throw in more wood,
snapping large branches over your knee,
I saw all our inhibitions melting away in that pit.
Months of desire and tension fueling a fire nine feet tall.

The words flew out of your mouth
like the orange embers escaping into the sky.

You told me you loved me.

And like a strong chemical reaction to too much wine
and a lifetime of never having heard those words from a man
I felt my body levitate
and saw my blood pumping strongly throughout my veins.

Looking broken down and defeated
you sat down next to me
pulling my chair close to you
and I rested my head on your shoulder.

At that moment I felt as if the curtains would close
and a loud applause would erupt between the trees.
But we weren’t on stage
and it wasn’t an act.
Silence and fumes consumed us,
sending us into a deep, drunken sleep.

When daylight broke
and the piles of wood had turned to soft ash
and the empty wine bottles littered a bed of pine needles
a wave of reality swept over me.

I smoked my last cigarette
while watching a soft pink fog rise up from the lake.
He loves me.
And soon he’ll be leaving.

--Ashley Warren