Until the Pen Runs Dry

I want my love for you To smell like an old book— Where you can flip through the pages Of my affections And say, “Ah! Right here. Page 86: You wiped a tear from my cheek, And kissed me with more than Just your lips. That was the first time You kissed me with your heart.” Then you close the book Of my affections And inhale lightly The smell of my love. And you kiss me gently With your heart. I wrote this poem in February of 2018, and I remember that I wrote it within the span of ten minutes. That is the case of most of the poems I write: I find myself in a rush of sudden inspiration, and then I write it all out quickly, and then edit a couple words here and there, a few grammatical errors or place a comma or colon; then, after reading it two or three times, I say it's finished. I have a bad habit of not wanting to touch poems after writing them; I feel that, even though they are 99% fictional, they are genuine in the moment, and to go back at a later time to edit them would be...

She walked in through the main entrance as he stood in the foyer minding his own business, unaware of the change coming into his existence. The ancient belief came true, and light stood still in the foyer of his life, and the image before him left an imprint in his brain that he will never forget: Light scattered around her visage, leaving her to glow like something slightly more beautiful than an angel, yet smaller in figure—rays of light spearing through her strands of auburn. To enjoy what was in front of him was a child’s task; to relish in what was in front of him was the only correct thing to do: he would relish in her glow for as long as she would let him. “Excuse me,” she said, floating past him, eyes not quite meeting, but hers close enough to grow accustomed to the shape of his collar on his shirt. “I’m sorry,” she said, her hand brushing against the sleeve of his coat. He would never forget that first moment of contact, even if it was obstructed by fabric. “No wo...

Joel Until he heard the song " From Eden ," Joel had never been one to call a significant other cutesy names like "babe" or "love" or "baby." He had also never had a significant other to not  call such names. But as Joel walked into a small, forgotten sushi bar in downtown Portland, he heard a male voice singing " Babe, there's something wretched about this, " play over the speakers. And then the words " Something so precious about this " danced into his brain as his eyes landed on a woman sitting alone at a table against the wall of the place, and " What a sin " came out of the speakers as he continued to stare. She was wearing what looked like a top and a skirt, but could have been a dress, although Joel could not tell as the table blocked her midsection. What he could tell was her red hair belonged on the lonely pillow which lay on his bed; her freckles, visible even now in the low lighting, deserved to be k...

Here is a poem from my book  Like Ripples in Water  (you can purchase the book, if you'd like, here:  https://www.amazon.com/Like-Ripples-Water-Collection-Parts/dp/1979629595/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=garrett+willis+like+ripples&qid=1570411434&sr=8-2 ) Paradox I have this pit inside me— This pit that's deep And it's filled with emptiness. How contradictory, How paradoxical, How shitty. And I know I can't fill it— This empty-filled pit— With a view of the setting sun, Or a gaze up at the lambent stars. But I think— I think— I can fill it with the sound of you Breathing next to me At one in the morning. With the darkened room Still, and the porch light Lightly seeping in through the window, And the dim light gently touching The wall. Touching the wall the opposite way Of how I touched it When you said you were leaving. I found myself drunk the other night— Not that you'd be surprised; I found myself ...

Here is a short story from my book Like Ripples in Water (you can purchase the book, if you'd like, here:  https://www.amazon.com/Like-Ripples-Water-Collection-Parts/dp/1979629595/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=garrett+willis+like+ripples&qid=1570411434&sr=8-2 ) Pebbles “ Some people, in terms of love, are colorblind” was Henry’s favorite line that he had ever written, and it came from his first bestseller Colorblind . The title of his book clearly came from this line, and it took him all of ten minutes to write out the page-long argument that his protagonist makes regarding this statement of people being colorblind. And it took him all of two months to write Colorblind . He never intended for it to sell very well, or well at all, but it turned out that lonely, middle-aged women agreed with Henry (or rather his fictional characters). So that was how he found his audience. Henry, aware of his audience and what they wanted, was now on the research side for his next nove...

January 5, 20— I have grown tired. A lot has changed, taxing me in the process, since you left me in favor of that eternal rest. I know you had no control of your heart stopping, but my eyes have grown weary from seeing you in all the pictures on the walls of this place we used to call home. And seeing you in my fading and crackling dreams does me no favor either. Sleep may be a foretaste of death, but even in sleep I feel an infinite distance away from you.   Ricky brought over the grandkids yesterday, and they still ask where you are. And I still smile at them with that empty smile I sometimes gave you (the one that always made you feel shallow in your stomach). They are still too young to really understand where you went. Or, I guess, how you left this place. How is it that death is so simple yet so hard to utter? I would rather attempt to describe a color to a blind person than tell children that all of us eventually become blades of grass. But I ramble. Forgive ...