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Virgil Stone Poem
At 13, I used old tissue paper
to craft my best friend her wedding veil—
a drapery, thrown together in a flurry,
taping together parchment scraps, fragile and pale.
I ripped my old notes to craft her a crown,
to set atop her wind-braided brown mane.
The night before, I spun a construction paper bouquet
that, by four that evening, had wilted away.
She did not want to marry, so we chased her in our childish way,
laughing and breathless, the sky raw and filled with embers.
The grass, like hay, yellowed as the heat stitched our skin—
We and our bride lay spry, soaked in our own September dew.
Under the mess of matted curls, over those childish features,
I saw the rouge appear from running around the bleachers.
Pink with exhaustion, we found a blink of shade under the slender web
of branches, meeting the boy with a smile as soft as the leaves—gentle and tender.
From the dying sycamore, we conjured white arches,
took the paper rings I had learned to fold.
In the marshes, we cleaned our muddy shoes,
and the boy in the collared shirt took her hand to hold.
After, in the fifteen minutes left of our feast on the golden sun,
we spent our time losing all that we had in the mud—
our knees sinking into the moist earth, searching for bugs.
Our parchment flowers—crumpled.
Two paper rings—lost in a stumble.
And her veil—taken by the last mumble of summer.
Copyright © Virgil Stone | Year Posted 2025
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Virgil Stone Poem
The perfect petals puncture the fabric’s purple-blue,
And silver-platter fins paint the water every hue.
A globed sky has thawed, ripe with pine and sapphire stars—
And the glinted sheen of the oil graze on your lips reminds me who and where you are:
South; below the electric-white moon,
Bright enough to bleach my bones and leave me a fool.
Both sun-blind at midnight, rainbow scales in the night light,
Finding the love in the cracks of your paw—unlimited, yet finite.
Newborn, yet aching, with nothing left to give,
With famine’s touch still singing, but no love to let live.
It was my intention to escape you before we met again,
But the bends of the grizzly river flow, uncaring and unwavered—
And now your soft claws have my head, again wishing to be savored.
Copyright © Virgil Stone | Year Posted 2025
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Virgil Stone Poem
I’m living in those same lavender days,
Where the glaze of the morning dew is the only water we receive,
And its sweetness slicks poignance over your potent petals.
I fill my clear crystal cup at the table till it quivers,
Spill the shimmer of your essence until I overflow,
Then I drink you, like sharp and searing, sherry.
Your lips pressed on mine sting like nettles;
They grip and settle on me, festering inside until they’re cold,
Like ponds of soured cherry juice—so crimson and cruel.
I found art in your bitter taste,
Like well-aged whiskey in the glass of a young intellect.
What girl would pass on a man who promised everything,
And lived up to at least half of his words?
A man who’d lay her in his bed and ravish her like a body made of twilight,
Treat her as a feast, a spread sweeter than honey,
Yet musky like wood and steam.
A man who says she’s hot like fire, yet also mild like cream.
Certainly, it was unfair to expect me to resist.
Because the linger of his tongue reminded me so much of he—
A man who’s crazy, not just with love,
But both deep in his soul and from his head to his knees.
I see it clear, and I repeat the actions of my youth,
Hiding in floral, subtle fantasies brought on from the scent of his perfume.
But the thinness of the air, and the line that I walk,
Makes me afraid every time he breathes,
Or scowls, or talks.
The aesthetics of love are much more appealing
Than the feeling of your flesh being used as his warmth.
A wolf in the wild, not pure or docile—
But still expecting to be coddled
Like an innocent, soft child.
I’m living in those same lavender days,
Where at least the haze of the fog protects me from the fear.
But here I sit, and I plan every way that he will kill me,
And every way that I will have to pay
For indulging in our shared need to flee.
Copyright © Virgil Stone | Year Posted 2025
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Virgil Stone Poem
Some days, I’m still fighting the urge to light a cigarette—missing those rippling ribbons of smoke and the way they would uncoil in the dark, humid air. I’ve been coughing so much lately, and my lungs will hardly expand for any air that isn’t polluted at the source. I’ve been hacking up my lungs, and each time it feels like trying to drag them out through my throat just to see how charred they’ve become. I ignore any signs of disease—any signs of my own actions catching up to me—all because I’m so afflicted and so addicted to slowly ending my own life. Undoing the veiny strings of my body for no reason other than my love for being unhappy, only allowing myself to breathe the poison I think I deserve. After long nights, when my daydream canopies crumble, I always wish to commit blasphemy for you again—treat your white ash like the god I sometimes think stopped loving me long ago. I wish I could still believe the burning in my chest when I run is the only thing that will save me from a future that’s not home—because it saves me from a world where I feel like all I am is my flesh and bones.
Copyright © Virgil Stone | Year Posted 2025
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