"Step Lightly on the Forest Floor"

Pushing up from the loam, from the self-induced darkness temptations oscillate above me in attempts to stunt the growth of walls constructing/deconstructing around my core. Somehow I imagined the absence of light and voices, filled with gentle words, sifted through fences, might diminish me back into reality. But it only covers me in a fine layer of dirt rich in conflict laced emotions, and sometimes I feel left to the obscurity, only noticed in fits of automatic need that satiate curiosity or buffer the pain of loneliness. And you make light about the condition of my keep, left in the dark sustained on shit, and I laugh with you only because it is true. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Abacus"

She only holds hands until the second crosswalk and then the warmth of tiny fingers floats away without care; This large hand left grasping at fog already cool from her absence. It starts the morning ritual, inspecting the fringes of sidewalk for slugs, keeping meticulous count on eager fingers, prepared to move beads on the abacus hanging in front of her eyes. They are cataloged by size and thickness until the final count has been reached, until the flower beds draw her in with colors and dew, and she flawlessly moves on to spider webs. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Agua 2007

"New Ideas that are not New"

The red-haired boy rings around an oak tree filling his curiosity like a pail left out in the rain, each droplet providing a transfer of energy bent on lighting up his face. Little by little it creeps up from his chin pulling muscles into a smile, cheeks livening with the pink of new ideas and eyes pop open in wonder as the most important man in his life tips his head around the trunk. A chase ensues. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Olly, Olly Oxen Free"

This forest is thick with haves and have nots, heavy with could be's, drenched in the evenings lingering dreams. I see him around the tree hiding and holding his breath, shushing the sound of his heart beating louder that fists swung in a rage. He finds that place where it quiets and limbs relax into the bark and sounds have silence under their tongues. And I cannot stand to watch it so easily attained, this restraint and knowing of concepts that have always been my crosses to bear, with their heavy hands upon me, no intensions of sharing the burden. So I leave him there backed into his tree, in his sounded silence, his miraculous resolutions of heart, and slip into the dark. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Erbacce 2/08

"Quiets in the Sound"

I open my door to the fresh of morning, a wisp of fog still hanging loosely around the burning bushes and it is there I find a head of stone, Its sweet face meticulously carved into the gray. I run my fingertips over the features smooth and life like, and I think of your face when I close my eyes, pausing a moment at the lips, sigh my heart into your mouth. I turn its heaviness over in my hands, rough and uncut save a symbol gouged into a smoothing that tells me of paradox in tiny glyphs and marks, sings to me “Twinkle, twinkle like a star does love blaze less from afar?” out of the peaks of rough stone that remind me of the sea, and I add my salt to its body willingly. The creator etches his secrets into the granite knowing it will hold them, knowing the surface is stronger than most men, that words in their simplicity can pluck so tender at the strings of a heart until it quiets in the sound. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Meant to be Broken"

Driving down the highway into a rising fog thick from the river, and I feel stuck inside my brain; thinking of the force your will pushes me with, how it punishes me into humility. Moving around the bend faster than the limit, grinding random rules between my teeth, their acrid taste scares me because I cannot get enough, and the sun bursts sideways through the density turning everything white. I feel your hand, cool and smooth, softly wiping away the condensation of my fear. Your skin wet with the heaviness of me, with the residue of my emotional explosions, rabid dog obscenities and lack of control. You touch my chaos to your mouth and it taints the waters between us. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Debris Magazine 7/08

"Headspace"

I sit and wait in silence today under a canopy of spider webs laden with summer’s furtive capture. The old fat men lazy in their hammocks take in what is left of their lives. The world seems alive today, more than yesterday, with prospects of discovery cajoling me. The bobbing of goldenrod releases pollens sure to induce future miseries, and leads me to believe their musty odor is something to be relished as the garnering of autumn. But more so, it is the wind speaking to the trees, curling its chilled tongue full of secrets and whispers, around the leaves, transforming the color of the world, coaxing them into slumber like a maiden fair. Some part of me yearns for this kiss of permanent sleep that would find me suspended in the fine mist between reality and dreams until the taste of spring thaw drips unto my lips, lingering there like a prince beholden of beauty resting in silence under a canopy of spider webs. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Angle of Arms"

She finds moments when their bodies are close together, skins in light sweat sticking with feverish tension as she guides the young girl’s arm through a perfect forehand; Her sex rubbing against the flounce of a tennis skirt; The friction of her breasts pushing into a delicate back during the follow through. These things are all too tempting, as she plies this young thing, this child into a bleeding story speaking of star-crossed and forbidden lovers telling tall tales about the differences between them, their strength more than the world can handle. Though the span of their ages is greater than the sum of the girl’s years she cannot change the desires or the love buried inside her as she lowers her face into sweetness and innocence to taste that which was never hers to begin with. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by False Eye Beetle 2007

"Faces of Old Men"

Cultural smells threaten the air with temptations creating a hostile war zone in my gut as I run my fingers along spiked iron bars confiscated by rust beneath the surface, chipping away at the infrastructure. The tepid water sprayed from the green hose wets my arm, skin reaching and pulling towards petals imprisoned in spaces between rectangles, trapped in two-dimensional skirts of fabric tragically shapeless. The sound of tread from two wheels and four kissing the pavement, dissolves into beats of bass that push shoulders back and cock arms stiff in a show of cool. Leather faces, imparted with yellow smiles, gaps in the mouth letting the world enter of its own accord, letting tongues slip through as if made of ocean salt pushing through ragged coral, only to be wiped clean by the hands of age and sun. I am an illegal alien with a swelling in the core, taken by realities, unfolding inside myself, watching the transformation of the human condition in smiles and eyes. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"How Deep It Is"

Her head slumps forward in the wheelchair, chin accusing the mouth of drooling too much, and he pushes her steadily looking around at the grayness, at anything but the line of spittle from her lips and is lost in a far off look of sadness that mirrors hers. There is love between them though hidden and morphed over years of illness, memory loss ,and time. The sweetness of it now faded on the tongue, as she no longer knows his name, or her own. It is the scraping of her sneakers echoing off the glass buildings filled with pretty things she won’t remember or maybe did not even see. The black smudges digging grooves into her white tennis shoes with fateful resistance tell the biggest story, of how things push her against her will and how she is left with silent arguments between body parts for company. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"When It Falls Away"

My body is curious, transparent like air, invisible molecules undergoing fission and fusion in rapid succession as October drills in through the windows with the sounds of my bird on the playground entertaining the German girl from next door with loud spoken stories she will never understand; And autumn is flashing her bosom blushed in jacinth and cinnabar, the foothills alight in the slow burn rising into the blue. Aleathia Drehmer 2007