this is a weekly feature in which i select ten phenomenal literature deviations that have recently caught my eye. if you have been featured, please this journal and read the other works. now, onto the main event—



The 26thThere is a Christmas tree in my hallway, decorated with globes and gold and lithium words. I pass it everyday on my way to the metro, to catch the 9 o'clock train heading out of town, out of state, out of life. The holidays have long since passed, but you insist on leaving it up, believing in the off chance that they might return someday. I know they won't, though, for the empty boxes are all unwrapped and the holly wreathes have withered from prolonged exposure to desolate, teardrop snow.
Every morning you wake me up, bells on your wrists and a red hat dangling from your head, your voice an enthused whisper as you tell me Christmas is here. I pretend to believe you, pretend to have hope and stumble out of the room after you, and pretend to be disappointed when I find the tree's needles have all trickled to the ground. It's dying and I try to avoid your broken-hearted face as you crumble in defeat, lay in the December dust and become a beautiful ornament broken by a careless lov
"Every morning you wake me up, bells on your wrists and a red hat dangling from your head, your voice an enthused whisper as you tell me Christmas is here. I pretend to believe you, pretend to have hope and stumble out of the room after you, and pretend to be disappointed when I find the tree's needles have all trickled to the ground."



"summergirl, the snow is deep.
the river is hungry."


In Piecesrum-lust lips make gentle friends,
words slurred in hands blurred,
burning in between the lines to find
some
drunken concoction of wilted laughs
and heavy sighs, scented sultry
with desperation.
you are that
rasping in my throat when my voice
deteriorates and I am left breathless
and hopeless and raw, my
muscles ache in memory of the
motions to forget-
we do not let go.
and cold beds call, stability,
metal frames and sunken heads –
rest now, rest with
a prayer on your lips you don't
care to share, a dream in
your mind you'll never get back;
rest and the earth will lend you peace
and
you will stop. the rivers will clean
your bones; the sand will smooth
your tongue; you will stop, brain blank,
as smooth ivory promises persist.
(interpretations mean less than nothing)
you will stop and rest,
finally,
at peace.
"you will stop. the rivers will clean
your bones; the sand will smooth
your tongue; you will stop, brain blank,
as smooth ivory promises persist."

Mature Content

"then you will fucking watch me cry like a thousand
children lost in the wilderness, or leave me
to my element without a cause"



"Don't know what to expect,
how much to accept;
don't know much at all."


escapeescape
---------
I shall leave the windows dirty  
and the doors unopened  
and when I awake from sleep  
where I make a world of my own  
I shall read  
and watch  
the worlds created  
by those who've already flown  
to a place where there exists  
only one of each thing made  
Lancelot Price 2012 December 31
"I shall read  
and watch  
the worlds created"


four thousand and onei've smoked about four thousand
cigarettes this year and i still see nothing
but ash and empty packs. i had a lot to learn.
i didn't learn any of it.
all was funeral gray and washing dishes till
my fingers felt like land mines. we were
not finished being dumb when you died
and i found out that night under the speckled
window lights still on how those lights could
look like stars if we looked at them in just the right
way--
and i didn't believe you were really
dead, not then because i couldn't shake
those two in the morning smokes
all summer while you drank
your beer and i my diet coke and
talked about nothing in particular and it
was not amazing but it was nice
and i'm scared to read the things that i
wrote then because i'm scared i'll
run out of god and run out of cigarettes
and run out of money and run out of you
like i'm running out of
this year blowing confetti
poppers at the bleeding sun that comes
out every night and shrinks and shrinks
to be the size of you when you could fit
in
"and i'm scared to read the things that i
wrote then because i'm scared i'll
run out of god and run out of cigarettes
and run out of money and run out of you"



"How I pictured
in those erratic inky tracks  
a fawn

that lowers her head
to taste a rare winter green
and pauses, then,"



"but caught transfixed by your mouth;
the obscene jut of your adam's
apple and realizing i can bite at

your slick lips your slick tongue
your stubble your jawline and you"


:thumb341553389:
"and maybe there was a bomb in the oven
inside of you that i couldn't find- but i swear
i tried my hardest to catch the gun powder
that rolled down your cheeks before it fell
onto the insides of your ashen wrists"