Law School

"What’s the title?"

"Res Ipsa Loquitur."

"The thing speaks for itself."

"Someone paid attention in law school."

Riley shook his head briefly but violently as if incredulous then dismissing the feeling.

"I hang this piece at every show in lieu of an artist’s statement."

Photo: eivaj

Wall Drug

Signs poked up from the cornfields advertising small chain restaurants Brigid had never heard of and billboards beckoning tourists to Pioneer Village stretched I-80 from the western border of Nebraska to the Missouri river. The contrived pressure to visit this manufactured destination was akin only to Wall Drug in South Dakota.

Photo: saintgreen86

Choas

"I don't want to be your chaos and I can't conform to your insane rulebook. I can't eat maple and brown sugar oatmeal every Saturday for the rest of my life. I don't lay my clothes out a week in advance. I don't want a Palm Pilot to run my life. I hate that I own a cell phone. I hate that I'm attached to world every minute via email. I love my chaos."

Lex glanced around as if the perfect response was adrift on the cold night air, somehow tangible like the plumes of smoky, white breath filling the air between them.

"I don’t want to be your pierced, alternative, artistic, girlfriend that you drag to dinner parties as an attraction or conversation piece. I'm not a sideshow freak."

Aislin met Lex's eyes as they flashed with an appology and faded into regret.

"You'll just turn into another thing I have to survive."

Prison

They stopped in Sterling, Colorado for gas and a toilet/sniff break for the furry one. Brigid sneered at the hulking prison just off the interstate. She understood the industrial utility of the structure, but thought the state could at least make the outside of the building pleasing for the rest of the world rather than emphasizing the presence of this marginalized population in a marginal place.

Photo: joaoloureiro

Liquid Fingers

The sun had put on work clothes and was headed for a day tending to the Iowa crops. The eastern horizon blazed pink and orange was the work day began. Brigid could feel the sun's approach in her veins like a tidal pull calling the ocean up the beach. As the tide rose, her foot grew heavier on the gas pedal urging the BMW over 100 mph. She wanted to be home before daylight's liquid fingers stroked the earth.


Photo: Justin14100

Fire

Lex pressed his palms into the tiles,

let his head drop,

allowed the water to run

down his shoulders and back.

Showerhead massaged tense muscles.

He thought about the woman

asleep down the hall:

vibrant yet reserved. 

Maybe the restraint

was a good thing. 

If he were to live to the fullest

he may spontaneously combust,

but this girl would set the world on fire.

The early hour and hot water

conspired against Lex. 

Blood pressure dropped,

inhibiting oxygen flow to the brain.

World blurred into steamy drifts of clouds.

Nausea washed over him,

undulating in his stomach. 

Sundress

I fiddled with the hem of my favorite sundress. Red and covered with yellow and white daisies, the dress had shrunk and grown softer through the summer until it was more tactile than modest. 

Photo: DeProfundis-Art

After a very wet spring, Brigid enjoyed the sun on her forearms. Cheery yellow daisies and purple thistles painted large swaths of the median. Billowy clouds stacks up along the horizon—the bottoms dark with vibrant white tops—mirroring the mountains diminishing in the rearview. They passed a patchwork of cornfields, soybeans, and hay occasionally interrupted by a deep green irrigation circle.

Photo: leelloor

Beckoning

He curled his long, lean frame around her: his forehead pressed to hers, noses touching, lips only millimeters apart, and breath in sync. It was the most intimate sex she’d enjoyed—two bodies and two souls singing to each other with no words but the gentle strokes of limbs, heated kisses, and gasping breaths. Yet the morning light peeking around the quilted window shade told her that their time together would soon come to an end as the world beckoned. The offer of a cereal breakfast was refused as she couldn’t allow herself to be further seduced by his charm and tender caresses.

Photo: silendriel

Broken but Undamaged

Lola lacked the yearning to:

seek another soul,

share intimate details,

frolic as if each day were

made of blessings and insights.

Built of desirous flesh,

Lola sought comfort in

compatible carnal constructions:

lipstick, thigh highs, leather,

and the gentle snap of a

riding crop.