The Concepts joined by +

boy + girl:
    One milkshake, two straws
    half bent and rigid
    like they sit, in the booth
          batting her eyelashes
          pretending he doesn’t notice.
    The elements of the night have been
          -slightly-
    ignored.

love + marriage:
    Best friend, lover, only one,
          soul mate…
    the unfairly unexplained, and unreachable
    precipice, upon which—
    each one of us
          instinctively
    places someone
    we will all pretend to find,
    and to whom
          (rather than with)
    we will belong.

birds + bees:
    Is it formal enough—
          urgent enough,
    to mumble some sort of
    a warning,
    at some (semi)-calculated interval
    between apple pie
          and evening chores?
    So soon we forget
    who is entailed—
          what is and isn’t a mistake
          when involving relativity:
    two people, one moment
    two hearts, one second
    two hesitations, one decision
    two souls, one body
          if only for one moment.
    Pause,
    let time catch up
    so we can all understand:
          even love,
          and cliché are relative.

you + me:
    I don’t recall
          exactly
    what it was, I just remember
    there was something
          beautiful
    the electricity between
          (our breath
          our words
          our lips
          our fingers, chests, legs, hips,)
    us.
    Wind rattled windows,
    requests to join us rattled the door,
          and the table where our phones lay
          (ignored and out of reach),
    but that is all riddled with the past tense.
    Teamwork could do us a world of good
          tomorrow.
    Tell me when we forgot,
          (how we forgot)
    and I will calculate
    the exact number of
          pointless walks,
          playground visits,
          single roses,
          Chinese take-out meals,
          poems and promises,
    hours it will take for us to mend.

cats + dogs:
    It rains them, and we fight
          (like such age-old enemies),
    through storms and broken windows.
    It really is too bad
          that it was over your head.
    Less than deadly aim
    is
    barely more tragic than
    humidity-inspired nostalgia
          and nostalgia inspired weakness.
    Screaming makes for sore throats,
    and all the wrong connections
    make for
          red, sore, bloody knuckles,
          crumbling graying drywall,
          growing black rifts,
          yellowing bruises.