#writerraines

in the moonlight,

traced sigils on your ribs,

outlining each rose.

Mangled dreams

slipped between the seams

of your sighs.

You said you’d felt something real—

for the first time in forever.

But it was over

before it began.

I told you this was nothing new,

at least not for me.

You said that made you sad.

I asked why?

You had no answer.

And after that,

not many words remained—

only your apology.

I didn’t understand why you were sorry.

This was life.

This was normal

for people like me.

Not many can sit in the pauses,

when a writer craves words

over shared wine,

solitude over shared air.

I think you were one of the few

who understood.

But you had other realms to haunt,

no more time for mine.

So you laid yourself down—

one last drink,

one last time.

Levees–

To feel anything is to feel everything at once.

The levees have failed.

There is nothing to hold back

the rising flood.

It is the artist’s plight,

and also our power.

If only we could learn to channel this water,

instead of spending our lives

building walls against it.

But to create is to surrender.

to be the flood itself–

untamed, unboxed,

unbridled.

PETRIFICATION–

I flayed myself for you—

peeled back flesh,

layer by layer.

Revealing the architecture

of raw want.

Tendons. Bones.

No armor left.

I knew these winds.

Still I knelt.

Find me now, years later–

a stone figure

in the wash.

Press your hand

to my sandstone ribs—

does memory keep

the warmth

of skin

that trusted?

You asked for truth.

I gave you a topography

even the vultures avoid.

@writerraines

Black Roses–

I laid you down

in the moonlight,

traced sigils on your ribs,

outlining each rose.

Mangled dreams

slipped between the seams

of your sighs.

You said you’d felt something real—

for the first time in forever.

But it was over

before it began.

I told you this was nothing new,

at least not for me.

You said that made you sad.

I asked why?

You had no answer.

And after that,

not many words remained—

only your apology.

I didn’t understand why you were sorry.

This was life.

This was normal

for people like me.

Not many can sit in the pauses,

when a writer craves words

over shared wine,

solitude over shared air.

I think you were one of the few

who understood.

But you had other realms to haunt,

no more time for mine.

So you laid yourself down—

one last drink,

one last time.

–g.m. Raines

These were the days of paper maps

and lost car keys.

We gathered our change for a bus ticket

to nowhere,

though it was somewhere to us.

The smell of drugstore cologne left its mark.

Maps.

Mirrors.

And makeshift excuses.

Purple ink on postcards,

time-worn, yellowed, with ripped edges.

Love had become a dying art.

Promises were penned with a careful madness,

trusting we’d find the way.

Together we’d navigate our destination—

trees versus sun,

desert against rainforest.

Somehow, we’d find the surface.

A sharp bend:

Lady Washington, stalwart in the harbor,

the jagged evergreens stood apart in reverence.

We were sinking years before

she became the Black Pearl.

I could still feel you reaching for my hand.

My feet were unsteady against the unruly Washington beaches—

driftwood, glossy grey rocks, the scattered remains of crabs.

I kept falling.

I was still falling back home.

Hands reaching beyond depths previously unknown.

Uncharted, shipwrecked navigators.

Paper maps.

Melted mirrors.

Every imagined excuse, tossed from the Greyhound bus window.

Donner Pass.

A shared fascination with death, life, and the in-between.

Your cologne was still on my throat.