all of a sudden passion suddenly

[_Land]

"Stuck With You"
By Bear Sage

Look, I didn’t ask for this assignment.
Straight shot to the heart?
That’s what I trained for.
But no—Cupid got drunk again,
aimed low,
and here we are—
me lodged in your left cheek,
you limping toward your “forever.”

Romantic, isn’t it?

You're welcome, by the way.
That itch behind your ribs?
That sudden urge to write poetry
about someone who doesn’t text back?
That’s me, sweetheart.
I started that spiral.

Do you even know her last name?
Didn’t think so.
But now you dream about her eyes
and wonder if fate is real.

Newsflash:
I’m not divine intervention.
I’m just a blunt object
with commitment issues.

I used to believe in love, you know.
Gold-tipped and glory-bound—
until I was rerouted to butts and bad decisions.

So good luck.
Tell her you felt a spark.
Tell her it was destiny.
Just don’t mention me.

I’m still stuck in your ass,
and frankly?
I deserve better.

 

[_Land]

Conway Titty
(a honky-tonk hymn)
By Bear Sage

She slid into the bar
like heat off the hood of a pickup—
cleavage high as Sunday sin,
jeans so tight
they read like scripture
in stretched denim syllables.

Her ass didn’t walk—
it testified.
Wranglers painted on
by the devil’s own hand,
stitched at the seams
with every bad decision
I ever wanted to make.

She leaned on the bar
like temptation in heels,
bent just enough
to break a few commandments.
Her tits had their own gravity—
orbiting every eye in the room,
pulling halos from heads
and prayers from men
who forgot their wives' names.

She didn’t speak in country tones—
no drawl, no dust.
She snapped,
like a cigarette under boot heel.
Every word
a match strike
on the zipper of my restraint.

We didn’t dance.
We collided—
in sweat-slick rhythm
and neon shame.
She moved like sin
with a two-drink minimum,
and I followed
like a hymn choked on heat.
---

She was my Conway Titty—
“Tight Fittin’ Jeans” spilling gospel at the seams,
“Hello Darlin’” written in the dip of her neckline,
“I’d Love to Lay You Down”
wasn’t a lyric—it was a wanting.
She was the whole damn catalog
pressed into a halter top,
and I sang every sin
with my eyes wide open
and my belt halfway gone.

---

She left no note—
just a smudge of lipstick
on my belt buckle
and a dollar bill
stuffed in the shape of goodbye.

Now every honky-tonk smells like her skin—
sweet sweat and sin,
Bud Light and lust.
And I keep showing up,
hoping she’ll walk in again
wearing nothing but trouble
and jeans that oughta be outlawed.

---

Yeah, she was my Conway Titty—
two soft verses of “You’ve Never Been This Far Before”
and a chorus that rose
like a slow-dancing prayer.
She left town in a cloud of heat and heartbreak,
but her memory still leans low
across my barstool dreams.
She was the encore I never deserved—
the cleavage that made country music
feel like revelation.

 

[_Land]

Enshrined

they embalmed him—
but not the stench
of his fingers
dragging rivers
down my nerves.

no shovel
can unspool
the barbed wire he coiled
behind my breastbone,
where breath goes to bleed.

his mouth is dirt now—
but I still taste
his vinegar silence
burning behind my molars
like swallowed razors.

they stitched his eyelids shut.
mine stay open,
forced wide with rusted pins
of memory—
I blink
and still see the belt swinging.

earth took his weight.
but my hips still buckle
under phantom hands
that taught obedience
through fracture.

his name chokes the lilies.
his shame feeds the flies.
I flinch
at kindness—
as if it wears
his cologne.

even now,
his ghost pisses
in the corners of my trust—
territory claimed,
love marked
with the musk of violation.

the grave is too shallow.
he leaks.
through photographs,
through my posture,
through the static
in my smile.

his legacy:
a velvet noose
I still catch myself tightening—
fingertips brushing the bruise
like it might
be a blessing

 

[_Land]

Pressed Linen & False Light

Mouths open on cue,
rows of teeth polished
like showroom floors—
nothing enters,
nothing leaves.

He adjusts his cuff.
She adjusts her hem.
Wrinkles are betrayal.
So are glances
held one second too long.

Fingernails tap wood.
Not impatience.
Muscle memory.

The little one flinches
when doors close too loud.
Everyone notices.
No one speaks.

A woman two pews ahead
wears her silence
like silk—
soft, expensive,
unforgiving.

The man beside her
smells like citrus and sweat.
His breath fogs the window
between them and what happened
last Thursday.

There’s a ripple
in the symmetry
of every bowed head.
The kind you only see
if you’re looking for blood
in the folds of a white cloth.

Whispers sound like compliments.
Eyes mean nothing
unless they linger.
The room is full
of mirrors pretending to be windows.

Someone laughs.
Too loudly.
Too long.
No one joins.

Outside,
a cigarette burns
to its filter.
Inside,
everyone waits
for permission to exhale.

And still,
the lights hum
perfectly
in tune.

 

[WCSGarland]

Fuck it all, new non-erotic poem submitted for publishing. Blood Courses My Veins. Dedicated to all those poets who write while drunk. MWAH!

 

[_Land]

Fuck it all, new non-erotic poem submitted for publishing. Blood Courses My Veins. Dedicated to all those poets who write while drunk. MWAH!

A drunk writer is an honest writer

 

[EllenMore]

Edward, Reading a Book

When I look at him, I see myself
young and lithe beneath him,
opening like a lens
eager to let in more light,
to bathe in its brightness.
This is all memory, of course.
The violent bloom that is sex
has long receded, viewed now
like an old painting, framed
in a heavy carved gilt,
varnished, a little dulled.
But something about his hands,
the way he holds his teacup,
as if absently teasing my breast.
It seems sometimes my very center
can remember him as well.

 

[SmilingLez]

They called me a queer at the LGBTQA+ rally.
Like my love was a question mark.
Like my hands on my girlfriend's waist were a debate, not a declaration.
I corrected them:
LESBIAN.
Three syllables.
A landmine.
My home.

 

[softbird]

There are things I have lost:
A lost soul, claimed as mine,
A notion, wondrous sublime,
Yet now ridiculous, pithy,
A key, kept in a box under my bed
With which I unlocked your room -
It had no windows, only some rags
And bones for soup and cleaning.
And finally my care - some say
It is buried under the rubble
Of the hammer you called Love