the stars, the sea, and sleep.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Expecting Sparks

This is learning the touch of your own malleable skin,
Pressing against your chest and feeling it sink in
As your head rests against a warm, cavernous pillow,
Made curious by your hand that cooly slid underneath.
How your heart beat heavy over me,
Filtered and diluted by tangled sheets
That kept me warm, but hardly breathing.

I set your bones with my own bones,
Twice lapped and wrapped tightly
Against the time I had wanted you to trust.
But it was cast to crutches,
And you walked out alone, at least.
And as the chips were peeled from this stubborn shell,
It cried as it cut to the center
Of each of our confessed contradictions
From pulling out a better person,
But not without consequence of pushing them away.

So now you finally stood,
But pressed against these glass walls.
I begged you not to be my delayed mirror
And chased at you with an eraser and sharpened pencil,
Demanded you not be my alternate ending,
Or any for that matter.
Yet with it, you drew circles upon circles,
Damned circles,
Until points were circles,
And circles were walls,
Of which you bounced off like rubber,
And took back every step I tried to place in yours.

So now we finally stood,
Lost in smoke and mirrors
From the screeching of leaky brakes
Careening over canyon bridges and ambivalent peaks,
Running from my fear of projections,
And the sound of a conclusion that would inevitably fade.

So now I finally sat,
Put one over the bar set far too late,
And waited for you to reciprocate.
But we had been pushing and pulling,
Back and forth to a greater degree
When I had hoped to make it out of twenty-three...
So when we expected sparks and instead got a fire,
The light burned out – destabilized and got tired.

This is the last time.
A Möbius strip made out of a letter,
Engraved in the uncertainty of Always & Forever.