Falling west from the sky.
I catch it in my cupped fingers,
It saturates me with its golden hue
Staining my hands,
My arms.
A ritual in finality.
The sky is cooled by a lace of stars,
barely visible,
and I cradle this burnt remnant of yesterday—
and try to absorb it’s smoky stories, to inform
the virgin tomorrow
which lies ahead.
We are madhatters.
Who bicker and shake fists,
Then kiss and make it nice.
Then bicker and shake fists.
We do as madhatters do.
and talk all at once,
Then feign silence.
Then talk all at once.
in this world made of cells and stardust
we form a small nucleus,
protons and neutrons and
electric pulses bouncing off one another.
There is one and she is queen
And her madhatter tea
Is served in bed
Or off with your head.
She has spider hands
That hold, all the worlds comfort in their palms.
And also there is a man
Who is dark headed like the earth
And just as grounded.
He is formed of solid gold
And finds his ability to taunt
And tease
Both surprising, and wildly amusing.
Together they were
So young
And brought to life the rest
All of who have lashing tongues and giant hearts and too many words and too many tricks and games and glittering eyes and are bound to one another with shackles of love and hate and a walloping amount of pure disbelief.
We are the apple of our eyes
And the dagger to our hearts.
we are madhatters!
And we do as madhatters do.
I have received,
A scratched tin box, with a worn leather lid.
Inside
In the days before
You leave
I reacquaint myself with the city-
See upended graves and
Work to gently
Reform the dirt, pat it. Make crosses out of sticks.
Now I lay my head to rest.
I am
So wrecked
Still, bones are splintered, and major muscles are not functioning
Properly.
But I have received
The call to action
You sent it.
You knew, I could never be a deserter,
I could never just watch this battle
This fight
These swords clash
But I believe in it.
The summer is dwindling.
My respite has come to end.
You have sent me
A letter of orders
And I see your power,
Still has a firm grasp on me.
Even through this impenetrable distance.
Soon.
Soon.
Soon I will prepare to leave.
I will head out to battle.
After you leave.
But you, have taken a small, velvet souvenir of me.
Perhaps unwittingly.
Even so, as a result,
I will be fighting
Only half-heartedly.
there have been very few times
when I have felt each minute quite as sharply.
Filling and forgetting—half drunk cups of mineral water
and orange peels puckered with age.
Things feel too dirty, the daffodils bought last week on special
hang loosly, Sticking their crepe paper petals to the glass
makeshifting as a vase.
The water pipes click.
The refrigerator hums.
I wait, the kettle is on the stove.
On edge listening to the pitch
Racing to turn it off before it’s a full-blown whistle.
My voice has not risen from where it settled in the bottom of my lungs
Motions dusty
And still slumbering.
Outside is a pale green and when I look past the window
Sometimes
your roman-cut face swells in my mind.
Deep sunken eyes,
Of the lightest color,
Reflecting the sea,
Burdened by lashes.
I think now that maybe the whole time I was in love with you.
Your island is unreachable
Located somewhere beneath the stars and above the clouds
I find myself always looking up when I think about you.
Looking for your dream world
Walking circles on the moon
And touching white hot stars
These days you have fallen.
Corkscrewing to the bottom of the earth
Swallowed by the same sea
Which you once controlled, riding the waves
With the salty air lashing your lungs.
These days you have fallen.
You are always sinking.
Little prince. Little bird.
That way you walk
A ghostly saunter
The way you glide along the ground, as if you aren’t touching it at all
I don’t think I have ever heard your footsteps.
I spent so long being scared of your affection
Don’t you realize that I was protecting you?
And it was the most gallant thing I have ever done.
I wonder if it would comfort you,
Heal your bruised heart,
If you knew that mine was bruised too-
That with each pump
I feel the blood
Rushing to those tiny blue veins
And that it burns. so badly.
Swollen by beatings and brittle to the touch.
I want to grab you and explain that I was trying to save you,
Not break you into a thousand shattered pieces.
I never knew I had that power
And I hate it
Nobody can be complete, destined to float on.
a human shell. Zombie.
the jackles which haunt us tearing apart the little that is left
howling in satisfaction.
Little prince. Little bird.
I want so much to be healed by your gentle touch
J’suis maso
Choosing this pain
Which wakes me up at night gasping to breathe
So that you don’t have to.
Do you not understand?
Oh you,
I want to brush the length of your nose
And kiss you so soft and so sweet
And put my head in the crook of your neck
To be cradled.
I want to kiss you.
So soft.
and so sweet.
So that honey will fall from your lips.
To never be repeated again.
Sometimes I wonder if by waking up in the morning-- am I ruining my chances? There is something so romantic about all the tortured artists who remained tortured by never living in their time of fame and glory. It’s not that I desire to be so rich and famous and ensconced in glory—I desire only what others desire (or what I believe others desire) to live in the fantasy of the world knowing your name.
It is my belief that everyone is terrified of sinking to the abyss of a death unknown.
The sun,
Kicking heat off cement
Has amplified the smell of the blackberries.
Blackberries that mean,
The end of the summer is near.
Similar
To when
Our neighbour Toshi hands over warm paper bags
Brimming with ripe tomatoes
Of irregular shapes from her garden
How many times did I not sit on my roof at dusk?
How many bike rides did I not go on?
I only swam in the lake once or twice.
I can walk around and see that the mornings are darker.
Already.
Shivering washes of pink and blue,
Barely visible through the purple of dawn.
I notice the swollen scent of the air,
Eight months pregnant with fall.
Anxiety bleaches out all other emotions
School sales start
And I think,
Soon I would have noticed the buses practicing their routes,
If I was not, fortunately,
Going to be gone by then.
I think I can put the fan back in the attic,
The window screen under my bed.
The middle of august is a betrayal.
You are meant to think that summer could never end.
But the back of your mind is panicking,
Prickly, Already thinking
About summers wasted.
And one day, too soon,
I will feel a light chill, hear a honking goose.
The sun will glint on tops of leaves,
Spotlighting
The flames of orange, just beginning to lap at their tips.
And I will notice something go dormant inside of me.
Feel
Perhaps
A lumbering sigh.
Which will,
of course be the sounds
of summers wasted.
Damn that wretched muscle
Bound by strings, ligaments,
Of such elasticity
As to confine the beast
To writhe and contort
Glistening with sticky,
Viscous clotted blood.
OH! How it pounds
Swollen and bruised
And yet it goes
Creating such an immense
A racket impossible to ignore
A feeling.
So nauseating.
You turn to the skies
Neck stretched
With that wild animal pulsing so,
It nearly cracks open your throat
To the skies you scream
A scream
Which curdles
which allows that Heart,
dripping froth
to spill blood in such a foul cacophony.
And curse the creator
the mother
inventor
who gifted you with that heart
battered and spitting
throbbing in agony against your ribs,
fighting against restraint
so that it may,
at any moment,
explode from your chest
with a shriek
so decadent
and thick.
and tiny drops of spoilt blood
may shower upon
your butchered hollow shell.
