Coffee and Kerosene 

Coffee And Kerosene

J: Gray hair at eighteen,

dark circles like caffeine-

fueled tired demeanors,

in need of a healer.

M: Years past the teens

in my mind cooks things obscene

such as hip-hop and top-notch

jeans that show off my figurine

and mysterious sunscreen

from someone I shouldn’t be seeing.

But my skin is still peeling

and my hands shake from the coffee beans,

will twenty five be much better, 

or was it just fueled from fair weather,

a too-wooly sweater?

J: Like a movie scene,

she dances, hair like flaming kerosene.

Time flies by like a limousine,

crushing past dreams

and the wings of peregrines

among other things,

mainly things that used to fly-

but even they laugh when I walk by.

M: She has locks of brown

laced with gray and the fluff from better days,

and when she lets down her hair,

it litters the ground,

and its scent fills the air.

It smells like lavender and coffee,

and maybe something else that’s green,

a rainforest unleashed

in a room that reeks

of nightmares and weakness.

J: I lent her my sunscreen,

and she blows a pink bubble

of cotton candy dreams

and the promise of trouble.

The yelling of brothers

is a reminder that there’s others,

as well as anger of mothers

striking backs like prickly-finned puffers.

The beach has a cafe with a fireplace

where we can watch the rat race.

so come back to my side, and give the little and tired me grace-

don’t float away like a planet in space

packed inside a briefcase.

The future holds more than gray hair

and frappuccinos in the air.

It smells of fire, scared and wary,

and even your lover’s skin is temporary.