Invisible clouds retained their constellations in the twilight of our shared rooms, the dotted outlines of a carefully embroidered memory, the fragments of what we used to believe. She parted her thoughts and allowed for rain to resume it's course. She misspelled words on a mirror, waiting for her lover to awake.
1. The arbitrary combination of heat and water.
2. The sound of artificial sleep.
3. Closed eyelids and open minds.
She could ascertain the persistent shape of molecules, tied tight with elastic string, celtic knots of spiderweb homes, each named after an anonymous human being. We were strangers invading each other's closets,
summer comes in quickly by pagan-poetess, literature
Literature
summer comes in quickly
a large, black fly
circling concentrically
above the coffee table,
above the can of soda that
drips with condensation,
above the plate scraped clean by
a slice of rough-crusted bread.
i follow the fly through the house,
from one room to another,
until it goes back to the patio door
and leaves the same way it
came in. i like that kind of
predictability. i appreciate the
fly's politeness.
in a contemplative mood by pagan-poetess, literature
Literature
in a contemplative mood
i fell asleep
and then woke up again
and was apple-cheeked
with the dreams i had.
the pillow made creases
in my face and i
imagined them to be paths
on a treasure map. in the
spaces behind my eyeballs,
there might be old chests
bursting with treasure. there
might be.
sometime around midnight by pagan-poetess, literature
Literature
sometime around midnight
that's when you found me
with my hands cupped around a
lightning bug, and it illuminated my
face and i shimmered a kind of
silver in the dark. that's how you
knew where to find me in the belly of an
inky night, in those late, limbo
hours that are soundless and filled
up by ghosts.
you flanked one side of me as we
walked back to the house, with the
lightning bug a faint orb
behind us that faded and was soon gone.
its light lingered in my hands, though.
its white glow was on us, still.
I straddle the peak of this roof.
Nightbright snow burns my unshoed feet
& they burn it back.
I shiver at the effort of this white-on-white battle to-the-death.
I quiver until the shingles scrape at my toes.
Stiffly these legs obey my orders & climb the bloody chimney.
The wind silences my pleas for mercy, yet I
unfold myself into a bird & then into a diver.
Cupping my hands I feverishly scratch at
peeling-paint clouds; these crumble and flake to the ground.
One heavensent gust collects under the swan feathers tied in my hair
& I ascend owl-eyed to the top of this night.
Crashing in through the scab I picked open, I land with a
eres:
fire-pit-pit-of-my-stomach
feeling,
warm champagne for my insides
vos me caes
like
Autumn's daylight sliding down my throat-
seeping in through the holes in my skin until my kidneys glow
white-blue
waves-like-wings to carry me cos
i've dreamt of soaring this underworld
contigo
with heavy limbs &
f o u r in-this-moment eyes,
keeping "Far" far away
Let's don't quite recall the deep breaths we took, only why we took them.
in your mind
I have written no poems
since I left you,
met no one else
who could spin my heart
into twine
with the merest turn
of her voice.
in your mind
I have no soul left to conquer;
I have taken no liberties with
the body you kept
waiting pale and virginal
on your mantel.
in your mind
I am not a person
but a photograph,
grainy and irresolute
a daguerreotype capture
of who I was the last time I was yours.
and don't you understand that
this is why I cannot love you?
I cannot forget that when I
was swallowing death
like a saviour,
devouring its salt,
you had the brine of
another woman on your skin,
bright looming vanity
and a love that had you mesmerised.
I know that it's torn,
this cheap operatic passion
that you've renounced its wine,
that pearlish cloying nectar
but still
my thoughts run riot
with their vitriolic regime
and
I wear indifference
like a veil.
because you asked me why by toxic-nebulae, literature
Literature
because you asked me why
I love you
because hearts can be
broken with nothing but a
tongue
and because skin
is more than just
skin sometimes
and because
each crevice holds
something scarlet
in its shards
when you're in love
do you know what I mean?