I can get lost in

Your eyes that seep ocean water

The cracks and valleys in your hands

The sunbeams in your laughter

I see you and

My head rests among the clouds

You walk in starlight, you shimmer and glow and everyone is

captivated

as you walk by

I touch you and I have held the world in my hands,

your universe swallows me whole

This story was an assignment in which were asked to write a short story omitting the letter “a”; a lipogrammatic challenge. I may or may not have purposefully misspelled the word “dissonant” to make the story work..

It is bright, close to blinding outside. Through the tiny clefts in the blinds, slivers of white light splinter upon the wooden floor; the room seems to glow, otherworldly. Eyelids force themselves to uncouple; the girl’s body pushes itself up, her eyes squint. She forces herself into an upright position; she needs to close the window. From outside, the dissnonent sound of a deep, persistent thump of a stereo seeps through the window screen. The girl sighs; the window shuts. She turns, looking down. The floor she’s slept on seems to be dented from her nightly rest. No money, no money for couches, beds, sheets, comforters .Fledgeling with no mother– not for months — no income– the money she spends on food is not hers. Her rent is long overdue. She closes her eyes; long sigh.

Feeling sentimental and stuff. Poems used: “I love you” by Ella Wheeler Cox; “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe; “The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!” by John Keats; “Dear One Absent This Long While” by Lisa Olstein; “I loved you first: but afterwards your love” by Christina Rosseti; “[Lying in bed I think about you]” by Joshua Beckman; “You, Therefore” by Reginald Shepard; “Dangerous Love” by Maya Asregadoo

My darling dearest sweetheart

Lying in bed I think about you

here where there is no snow 

(I dreamed the snow was you, when there was snow)

Yours is the name the leaves chatter

at the edge of the unrabbited woods.

I loved you first— 

loved with a love that was more than love

Did you ever love me,

 my Annabel Lee?

You called me yours once and I smiled

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes

Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,

 Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise –

i – still – carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart)

i am never without it

My darling dearest sweetheart

Lying in bed I think about you

here where there is no snow