17: Searchlights (The Ballad of Holly)
You looked like bad news; I got to have you
by the shabby old farm last night.
You looked like bad news; the place we went to
charred itself down with candlelight.
Your eyes were pretty blue snowballs of fright.
Your eyes were pretty blue snowballs of fright,
mine held glints of Bundy’s statue.
Your eyes were pretty, though naive not quite,
By the farm, I got to have you —
such cold, cold lips after we claimed taboo.
Such cold, cold lips when I fin’lly kissed you.
“Such cold, cold hearts,” you screamed that night,
there are dark little things we can’t undo.
Dark things that set our veins alight
still taste so good after your death’s fortnight.
The taste lingers after your death’s fortnight,
oh, I’m sorry I can’t keep you.
Oh Holly, you loved me without a fight,
Oh Holly, sorry I shot you.
“Such cold, cold hearts,” so tenderly we cooed.
Oh Holly, you loved me without a fight,
Oh Holly, I’m so, so sorry.
All pretty blue eyes remind me of you.
You looked like bad news; the place we went to
charred itself down with candlelight.
You looked like bad news; I got to have you.
15: i desperately hope you don’t inhabit this anymore.
Loneliness brought us to an empty theatre.
tightrope walkers tickle the ceiling; we wonder. we wonder at what would’ve been, if there wasn’t such a fine line between a quicksand and gravity. our faces contort in the dim lights. we are outside looking in again.
exit signs begin to taste like green-eyed monsters and our throats are hungry from the chills He shoves down our back. the stage is pitch black. our blank notebooks deafen me. what happened to mocking whispers and ice-laden lips?
we wonder if He brought us here to show us the macabre. the way bones build the very seat we lock our legs in. the spiny torsos of strangers with stranger eyes. when the scarecrow dances, He means to grin at us.
but this is what He didn’t write in the playbill: nothing is more terrifying than what you want Him to say when our fingers unconsciously brush His cheek.
the heavy doors slam shut but the poster remains pinned. a midsummer night’s dream, bleeds the title, and we can’t decide if puck will ever make you laugh as much as Loneliness can when He does something to drive us off the edge of the cardboard lighthouse.
the stairs are dead but His stares prolong the interim. we have always lingered in between. (you remain unseen; my rationality keeps us both alive.)
we sugarcoat solidarity in the absence of matches; we become even easier to please. Loneliness brings us to an empty theater, but the moment He guides us to the orchestra with His hand on our back, the curtain catches fire. the ashes burn so, so coldly again.
isn’t this precisely what you wanted?
14: flesh
(come with me.)
we shall rest our bones on the earth,
dampen our cheeks with its tears
and swallow lightning.
(come with me.)
we shall place our bones over coal,
subdue these volcanoes we call mouths
and smoke the sea.
(come with me.)
we will smile upon the trees with
our backs pressed against them
and dance to the songs of the forest fire.
come with me
and we will rest our bones on the earth.
we will be human.
13: Song of the Crippled Aorta
Two black willowy hearts revel in space,
cleave tricks and cracks among constellations;
They carve a tragic love song from your face.
Corsets in bedrooms you tried to unlace,
Owls that tempt us with vows and odd reasons,
two black willowy hearts revel in space.
They pour salt and questions on our bookcase,
devouring lies, sanctifying poison.
We carve a tragic love song from your face.
Mercurial moons fester in your embrace;
we kiss to try and damn a thousand suns.
Two black willowy hearts revel in space.
I dreamed that dreams were easy to erase
but ours decay like an angel legion.
They carve a tragic love song from your face.
We set fire to the ghosts of cursed oceans
and bring back life to these crooked lesions.
Two black willowy hearts revel in space;
they carve a tragic love song from your face.
12.2
It’s 02:22 A.M
and I’m still talking to you.
My childhood crush,
you got my knees trembling.
12: to twelve different people (in the middle of the night)
welcome back, my childhood crush.
don’t you miss the playground?
i would’ve stayed.
the cat ears are still in my cabinet.
so is the first can of rootbeer. i may have washed it.
thank you.
it was november, that much i remember
when we started a bonfire without them looking over us.
(oh dear, the marshmallows.)
i hope you haven’t forgotten the hike because i haven’t forgotten
the spiders we tried to find, either.
let’s just pretend i never saw you in that moment.
of all the conversations regarding lap dances,
brands of highlighters, owl species and broken oven toasters,
what i paid the most attention to is that cheeky grin.
sometimes i still rewind those cassette tapes.
my father warns me to be careful with the player
because it’s ancient and fragile now.
but aren’t we all?
sometimes i wish one of the tapes would just break
just so i’d finally learn my lesson.
i never quite remember if you prefer chamomile or mint or earl grey.
i guess it doesn’t matter as much as it did.
do you know? people always tell me i have a brick wall now.
they don’t know how right they are.
you do.
i’m sorry i’m not any better than i was.
i’m sorry i don’t know if i’ll ever be better.
i’m sorry i tried to make you beautiful.
i still haven’t tried playing in the rain.
11: fleeting
because when strangers come and go
we do not have to boil our throats
and say farewell
the bathroom on the corner of
the ancient library misses you so
and chapters say not much else
but your name
(we never sat together in an airplane)
kundera explains the unbearability
of everything
and we just scratch our cheeks
once our eyes threaten to drip
when strangers come and go
there is an unbearability
in remembering because you left
and the whiteness of this paper
mirrors your wrist
i want to miss you because
you left;
you left because —
10: Deimos Sends Me Flowers
the broken teacups jump at night / sing me to sleep, sing me to sleep
be careful, dear, with every bite / with every paper plane you keep
those beds all speak of guilty lights / untangle my requiem’s strange sweep
but careful, Fear, of my good (k)night / he leaves the sea to watch me weep
09: on walking such a fine line
our teeth are feeble
fetching cherries from the dark
gnawing at strange clouds
our mouths tangle in shivers —
feeble but so, so fatal
08: we knew left from right,
but it took me the whole night
to see
that your tango was much slower
than mine.
it took me the whole night
and the morning after
to realize
that you were dancing
the waltz.
