She woke up with tears in her eyes, grasping at the blankets of the small bed they shared together. A dream haunted her as she slipped into consciousness -- she had been a witch and he had been a man doomed to live in ignorance inside of an animal's body, while she was doomed to try to save him until they both wasted away...or something like that. The exact details of the dream dribbled away from her as she rubbed her wet eyes and stretched, wiping her face on the covers discreetly. She didn't want him asking her why she was crying, didn't want to recall the dream in greater detail. It had left her quickly, but it had also left her with a heavy sense of loss, the kind that can survive in the waking world.

"Good morning, love," she muttered into the nape of his neck.

"Good morning, baby," he smiled sleepily, turning over to give her a kiss. He lapsed briefly back into sleep, arm draped over her shoulder. He was warm and musky and safe.

radiation sundrops

They're sprinkling down from the sky
to turn me in to something else
to make you different than you were
and brighten up our eyes with light.

They're pulling us from underground
our dead hands writhing for a touch
our dried tongues aching for a taste
to bring us back to lives we loved.

We're so excited, so relieved
to find the things we "really need"
but radiation makes you bleed
and sundrops hiss wherever they please.

We zombies scatter all around
and lurching through the streets of green
we question what we thought we knew;
now we know what life can do.