Midas’ Entropy
Black gold envelopes the marble floor, spreading evenly like a dark halo emanating from Midas’ feet. This throne, once glistening in Helios’ light, is reduced to the glow below the earth. Nyx will be his witness, as Midas feels Thanatos tug at his cloak’s fraying edges. A million boney fingers reach from the darkness to greet their once untouchable friend. Golden tears, poisoned by black dye, fall from his cheek, dissolving into the oil below like they were never there.
This inky mirror folding over golden cracks, reveals nothing but decay in its reflection. Reaching out a strained radius, Midas can’t help but grasp at whatever time he thinks he has left. His touch, once able to turn stone into gold, now clutching at pitch black sockets where his eyes used to be.
The first law of thermodynamics meets your hypothetical eye-line. Each golden touch pulled another inch of your life-force into the cold, until every season was winter. Boreas may welcome you into his frozen arms, but you will not go willingly. Helios grants you one last golden beam as you melt into the aether, your flayed fingers glide through it, exposed teeth smile and grimace simultaneously.
Time lapses, your remaining objects’ impermanence adds insult to injury. Wind carries the hardened black dust across the oceans, scattering you in the most meaningless places it can find. Your jigsaw becomes more impossible to complete with each second that passes.
Truth, undignified, dark, and disordered. Your odyssey writ, and warmed by ignored words, will allow your winter one last taste of spring. A fading legacy pulled back from the brink.
House Fire
This house is coming down. Gliding through the flames with my hand on the bannister. Staring down a hall ablaze. Where all the days we spent taking these rooms for granted, sparkle in the moonlight as the walls turn to ash. An inferno haze, where the fumes seem to last an eternity, parking in my lungs as we desperately try to inhale what's left of the air. Separately waiting until we hear the first sorry, before we choke on our tears, and collapse into our bodies.
Together, apart, each room tells a story. I pull down the handle and open door three. Walk through the garden, to the place our love blossomed. Now the life we built is crumbling, and my eyes glue to yours as we realise we're helpless. Glued to the floor, the door handle begins to melt through my fingers, we see our reflection in the metal transmorph into faces neither of us recognise.
Spinning in circles, looking at the house that trust built. Concrete foundations, oak beams and still, our hearts bleed from the staircase. Little lies we told form like cracks in the ceiling, cracks turn to cave-ins. Cave-ins block the exit. We can chip all we want at the hot ash and rubble, but each rock removed, is replaced then doubled. These windows are tinted by the black of the fog, no one but us can see what's going on.
Forced into door two, through the kitchen we run. The room where you asked if we were happy. Slammed doors and quiet talks ending with apathy. Seeking professional help, when there was nothing else, meet once a week before our brains start to melt. Grabbing the water faucet, and helplessly spraying the flames in the doorway. They laugh in our face, It's been burning for years, so why did we wait? Before they can spread to the bedroom upstairs, lay by my side on the mattress we shared.
Door one distortion, waving in the blaze like a Dali, torsion of this room bends us to breaking point. Under these sheets, consumed by the heat, droplets of sweat pulled you further from me. Fire like a hurricane, in the eye of the storm, when our hearts intertwined you were smothered by warmth. Sitting on the edge of the bed realising it's about time we change these covers, sometimes when you're facing the end, your mind wonders to the most menial thing. I pull the duvet up to my nose and breathe in nonetheless.
No matter how hard we tried, we just couldn't get loose, the anchor we're both strapped to falls through the deepest trench in the ocean. Cast aways in a vast array of blue, green and black. As we lie here, imagining drowning feeling like a light breeze and that, the deeper we sink, the closer we get to earth's core. Back to the room with the smouldering floor.
The bed shakes like an earthquake, but you look at me like you know what's coming. A phone vibrates, letting you know the Uber's here. Simple nods replace hugs, goodbye waves on the drive way feel forced. You turn your head to look out the back window thinking our eyes might meet one last time. But I'm already inside, trying to clear up the mess we made. Each brick we laid, with blood sweat and tears, moments we felt, that then disappeared. They always talked about falling in love. I never knew we could fall out. Your eyes are dimmer now, drained of their spark by the fire we wondered into. No way in, and no way out. Burning our skin with untenable doubt.
Lifting the needle onto our record, old static and rustling magic with piano keys dancing to the melody of our journey. Floating in this room as the flames crawl along the carpet like veins of poison ivy. I've been waiting for this moment long enough, purified in the majesty of her fire, in this fertile soil, a house burned to the ground by its tenants. Only to be rebuilt with the remnants of what made it strong. Now I can admit we were wrong. Brick by falling brick, we were fighting a losing battle. Our psyches rattled, a heightened confusion that will leave your body feeling breathless. And now, I’m still paddling against the current, a restless soul begging this house to learn its lesson. Whilst I keep building with these broken materials, the ethereal wonder of our project fades away. Lonely eyes staring through an open door, still wishing you'd stayed.
Call From the Mist
An elongated siren gradually rises from a low grumble to a piercing screech, cutting through the stagnant fog like a sharpened bow. The echoing sound, reaching its crescendo, begins to fall away into the muffled darkness. Residual middle notes hang in the air, drooping out of drooling jaws like they’ve lost their way.
The siren song continues into the night, interrupted only by the slam of doors on each side of the street. This time those lonely notes are all that’s left. As the spreading mist pushes back against the noise, I can hear every inch of my footstep moving from the heel to the toe. The hard rubber scrapes against crumbling stone as the fog parts at my feet.
My boots compress the ash below, leaving a trail from the dirt road to a darkened amphitheatre. The dense air suffocates the fidgeting flame from my dying torch until it can dance no longer. Pitch black ruins, still warm from their undoing, simmer on the sidelines. Whimpering mothers crouched in skeleton homes, holding decaying bones, spend whatever energy they have left lifting their heads to face me. Tear-stained cheeks sit beneath eyes too dry to cry.
A low grumble shakes the earth beneath us yet again, approaching from the East. I make my way out of the ash covered building to face her. Syvern lifts her head against the glowing moon before letting out a blood-curdling screech. I vow this dragon will not see the light of day again.
Our eyes meet in the shadowy twilight as the Shepard tone of my tightening bow reaches its limit.
I let it fly. My first arrow whistling like a storm through a crack in a window pane. It makes a perfect arc, slowing in front of the moon’s spotlight before landing in Syvern’s right eye. She lets out a roar yet again, shaking her head from side to side while shooting fractured fireballs from her open jaws.
Spinning towards the tree line, her tail whips across the stage and lands on my chest, knocking me 20 feet back against a wide oak. My arms are limp, my father’s sword sits loosely on my motionless fingers. It’s quiet now. Syvern’s roar morphs into a low groan as she slowly walks towards me.
My eyelids flicker as my left hand runs over the soil in search of my bow. The fingers find it, snapped perfectly in two. I close my eyes, awaiting my end. The birds are singing now, tweeting into the night. The song gets louder, interspersed with “Hey, you ugly beast”, and back to a loud whistle. “Over here you little shit”.
Bernaugh’s voice meanders through the trees to reach us as he throws rocks at the back of Syvern’s head. Slowing her advance, she turns to face Bernaugh who drops his last rock as his head tilts fully upward to reveal the scale of her.
“No.” I whisper. She paces forward. “Wait”.
Bernaugh begins to run. Syvern lifts her head back, compressing her chest before leaning forward and releasing hell from her lips. I begin to crawl. The town approaches from the west with pitchforks and torches. Syvern lets out a screech before retreating to the sky above. I continue to crawl. Bernaugh lies motionless on the scorched earth which forms a dark ring around his body.
“Why did you follow me here, brother?” I manage to gargle out, tears falling on his chest. The town forms a silent circle around us as I weep, bowing my head in shame at my failure. I hear one last high-pitched roar from the sky above, our sharpened eyes meeting once more before she glides into the darkness.
Salt of the Earth (Patricia’s Second Song)
Swathes of ash woken from their volcanic slumber will block out the sun. The blood orange mantle, and the obsidian wash. It may only last a moment, but our final seconds reveal a life so colourful, these black cinders will struggle to darken it.
Grey embers float on the breeze, gliding down Vesuvius’ flank like desaturated cherry blossom during spring’s opening. Your palms are shaking, out-stretched and waiting, slowly drenched in the smouldering remains of our mountain’s betrayal.
I don’t need to turn around and face the chaos. I can already see it in your eyes. A flickering flame so bright that your oak brown eyes are scorched into submission. And then they close.
You crouch down. Moving your fingers through the ash-stained sand like you’re testing the waters. I join you below the smoke, the heated ceiling compressing us deeper into the earth.
Charcoal smudges on your cheek reveal the creases from hard fought years. Discarding your tears, my fingers brush away the dust, as you lean into them to shield you from the light. The amber glow behind thickened mist signals our heaviest sunset yet. He may not have the strength to rise again.
Placing my head on your breast, your soothing heartbeat remains a constant, while mine attempts to climb out of my chest. As I’m cocooned in your embrace, nature’s falling bounty will do the same to us. Imprinting onto the soil, our eyes meet once more, these frozen statues, forever bound to the floor.
Somewhere, There’s a Garden (Patricia’s Song)
Deep breaths in capture the air like icy fireflies flickering in my chest. I rub my hands together like my life depends on the fire they’re unable to produce. The warm glow, poking its head over the jagged ridge in the distance does not have the confidence to approach. It instead recedes into the darkness. A line graph silhouette becoming statistically insignificant as its sunshine axes are buried under the horizon.
Somewhere, there’s a garden. Where your fingers are gently wrapping around a bright red tomato, your soil covered nails pressing against its soft skin. The shimmer of the evening light ripples over its smooth body as you inspect the fruit from side to side. She’s perfect. You place her in your wicker basket and move on to the next. This one is smaller, a deeper red, firm in its conviction that it’s ready to be picked. Guilt washes over you, knowing you will leave him disappointed. Shackled to his drooping green prison, the adolescent must learn patience the hard way.
Crouched amongst the earth, the swaying corn signs to you that her friend the sun, who’s always had her back, has decided it’s time to go. His latest beams have left a fiery haze in the air. He’s always been one for grand exits. You get up, disrupting the suspended dust particles dripping with red light. Head-height corn fields block the fading sun for just long enough that you catch one last glimpse over those Kentucky plains, forever rolling into the night.
And there I stand. The moon’s glow casts a spotlight on your oasis in the distance, as the sixth sense that you’re looking back at me across the valley, drags my iris glow back from the brink. The sands of time pull us closer and further away simultaneously. As we fall through each side of the narrowing glass, I can only pray we do more than pass each other by.
Dear Jess (Until Dawn Part 2.)
The harps are playing now, covering the sound of your indifference with sweet climbing melodies that fall as they reach their crescendo. Each note, a prayer that you pick up that pen and send a letter compatible with the thoughts laid out in mine.
We’re in the aether now, where only guesses remain. Hope for the future equidistant to pain.
...
Gliding fingers lightly brush against the strings as I make my way down the carriage, slowly advancing, the tempo increasing with each step. I see your eyes from the back of train, twitching line by line as you consume the pages. I can only question my luck that the last seat in the carriage would be the one next to you. Window light breaks the shadows, and that’s when it grew. The glow, positioned like a bonfire in the darkness that makes the skin of everyone in this carriage appear grey by comparison.
Thoughts becoming untethered, as we’re transported to Pacific North West. Damp pines and redwoods draped in moss, like vibrant green laundry laid out to dry. Fresh, cool air brushes against your skin and reminds you to try, opening your lungs to breathe in where we are. Buried under the heart, was a wilderness I’d been unable to conquer until this moment. Monoliths that once dominated the skyline with a darkness arching over a shadowy field, now form a protective shield over the bristling meadows we’ve wandered into.
Falling into ourselves like old friends catching up after we’ve both become wiser. We say goodbye with a hug, and a subconscious D Minor. When your hand grazed my arm as you left the car, the memory sparks began to contort the past into something I could handle, flashing with each solar flare blasting against the window. Your face is present in every one.
Your whispered thoughts matched mine with an intricacy that makes me believe in intelligent design. Our hands intertwine, in my mind, where your skin, and the soul within, wrap in me in a cocoon only your voice can release me from. I make do with written words. Now you’re gone, fading into withered verse, a singularity of vitality that allowed me to fall in love with you at terminal velocity. Those lips, forever able to convert sound into song. We’ll just be passing ships, that won’t be around for long. Branded in my brain with burning regret. Your body may have stepped off that train, but your soul never left.
Halcyon
Catharsis. Lurking in the rafters, a timber komorebi underscored by the laughter in movie reels flickering through the years. Your fingerprint lines, filled up by dust like meandering canals as you push down on a play button that’d almost given up hope of being touched again.
This attic smells of old. And old smells of yearning. The click-clack of super 8, breathing and turning transports you to the place. 1968. When it never seemed to rain. Were the yellow hues added in post or did it always look like that? Suburbia saturated by sting rays and shelbys. Smart shirts and slacks sell a life I thought wanted.
Dust particles linger in the lens’ trembling light. Once sitting peacefully, but awoken by my need to see what it feels like in someone else’s frame. Dozens of ageing reels scattered across the floorboards like fragile film stepping stones. My feet twitching, eyes unable to decide where they want to dart next. Disc two moves from the floor to the projector and begins to spin.
The 70s unravel. The ribbon picks up pace as it shifts itself across time and space. It’s darker here, the yellow hue fights it’s hardest battle yet against darkened skies.
They’re here to stay. A crowd gathers at the front of a church, calmly waiting to enter as our cloud’s liqueur lines get longer, falling on tweed jackets and wool coats. Let us pray, says he at the front.
I unhinge the play button to the sound of a grunt, like the projector knows it’s curtains have closed for the last time. Wasted on an audience who wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. I look out the window and experience depression’s golden hour. Seeing silence, the smell of cold filling my lungs as I imagine I’m the last person left on earth. Twilight reliant on the remnant glow, peaking over monoliths in the background.
Unlatching the ageing window hooks as a rush of cool air collapses into the room. I can’t tell whether the suffocating, dusted oxygen of the attic is being diffused by the outside or invading its purity instead. I step out on the roof and crouch down on the corrugated iron, wrapping my arms around my dirty knees.
I see Aloy in the distance. Sitting on our rotting swing, hanging from an oak tree. Twilight at her back, even her silhouette feels despondent in its darkness. She turns around to face the muffled light, whispered static consuming her senses. Pensive, we patiently wait for the world to make sense.
They Were Here First
These hills will be the end of us. Lying down to to see the blue sky above, feeling the long blades of grass gently brushing against our sun-kissed skin. The oasis we’re in does not require enhancement. Clarity in totality, I may still be watching this play unfold before my eyes, but for the first time in my life, I am glad.
Sprawling. These hills, with their cores unchanged for millennia, have been attacked with unwanted haircuts and root-canals to give them a new lease on our lives, whilst theirs began to whither. Folding into the green, our bodies melt into this soft soil shell. Farmland and farmhands have turned our surroundings into neat chessboards we can barely recognise.
Suddenly I am acutely aware that control over our environment is antithetical to its beauty. So I turn to you instead. Your wild and recalcitrant spirit drags me to the place. An untapped source of the chemicals we’ve been craving. Through the valve, our veins begin bathing in the drip. The wilderness in your eyes, and a gate at your lips.
Stepping through, your cheeks meet mine in the valley. Sun low on the horizon, our shadows hanging on for dear life as they’re dragged down the hill. Fading into the earth, this time we will join them in the dimming glare. Sunset’s yellow flickers on evening dew turn to speckled white as andromeda oscillates above. Our snowflake moment, painfully fragile, but infinite in its possibility for what comes next.
Untamed, uninhibited. Your unchained heart will make this handled ground hallowed once again. Finding your voice amongst the turf. A sound I’ve heard before. The silence of the snow, as the clouds start to fall. Soaked through, your eyes flicker through matted strands of hair like twisted roots. Resistant you, forge your own path, lavender fields part at your feet, intertwining and spreading wildly as you pass.
Between the Sand and the Sea
There seems to be a poetry to it, as I sit here patiently, tempering my breathing to the rhythm of this shore’s salty invader. Soaking in the soothing flow, relentless in its objective to take over the sand, but always retreating just when it reaches the pinnacle of its advance.
Froth at the forefront, unfortunate fodder for the melting stones beneath them. As those foamy infantryman make their way up the beach, supported by the might of the moon’s unwavering tides, they begin to fall by the way side, fading into darkened sands. Their blood stains the soil they’ve become a part of, only able to be removed by the golden orb shining down upon them all. It’s still unclear who’s side he is on.
The arc of this wash attack grows stronger by the second, but the generals at the back, only feel a small bump compared to the crash of those droplets at the front of the pack. The serenity of the crest makes way for chaos at the break, as their assault is finally able to pull back some of the earth they’ve been battering since dawn.
The sands of time have been kind to the deep, it’s expanding blue overwhelms the defenceless shores once dusk arrives. The shattered stones can do nothing but wait, lost in the dark but embalmed by the comforting glue formed by their fallen comrades.
Morning comes. With losses on both sides, they can’t help but be glad to have survived the night. The sea retreats, sending waves of its remaining forces to their transparent end, as the deepest hues sits comfortably in open water. The dunes at the top of the beach look on, their tops trimmed by the breeze incoming from the West. Before their drowning young can even catch their breath, the next onslaught has begun. Praying for daybreak, their wait for a truce will last an eternity. We will wait alongside them.
Closed eyes and deep breaths are interrupted by the swell wrapping itself around my ankles, as my toes sink into the bodies. Washing away the sin, she allows me to walk away with a clear conscience. Our regiment waits patiently at the end of the beach, surrendered waves creeping further back beyond them. The sodden sands, soaked through and choking on the left behinds.
I take one last look at the calming seas, knowing what the changing tides will soon bring. Our footprints, etched into the earth beneath us will fade away by morning. And as a new day is forming, the difference we thought we’d make goes with it.
A Piece of You
Waiting on the tarmac underneath a smouldering sun. Wrapped in a desert so hot, the metal beams above us contort like worms on the end of a fishing rod.
The red, white and blue, shakes in the wind, showing pride in its most random form. Bold colours, moving in rhythm to a sand storm that shows no sign of quitting. The clap of the fabric gets louder as the C-5 Galaxy touches down and makes its way towards the carrier. As the boots hit the ground, silence falls and the face I expected to be brimming with joy, forces a smile, twitching in the sunlight as a flag draped box exits the back of the aircraft. Your eyes seem darker here, they always glowed ocean blue, but now they’ve sunk to a depth even light cannot find.
Your fifth tour pulled the rug out from under us. A son, age 3 who doesn’t recognise his own father. He’s not the only one. Holding onto my fore-finger and poking his face out behind my dress, he asks who you are. I tell him it’s daddy. Kneeling down, you hold out a dusted hand, covered in bruises, dirt stuffed under your fingernails like plant pots. He holds my hand tighter whilst staring at the scar running from your ear to your mouth. “He has your eyes you know”, you mumble under your breath.
Meandering in and out of our lives like a stream, you make your way over to the fallen to pay your respects. Alone again, and staring across the desert your company called home for the last 3 years. But you moved in against the will of the people, and the gunfire grew closer with each day. The screams of your brothers carried along the sand dunes in a careless wind. Vibrating hands, still wet with your tears, rest on Briggs’ oak casket as he’s carried into a hearse. I found his name in a report left by the plane, knowing I’d never hear it from you.
With my hand out the car window, the light breeze offers some relief from the sweltering heat, but there is no relief from your silence. A man, with a heart so heavy he has to let go of the wheel every few miles to feel alive again. My heart beats out of my chest, but I keep quiet, clutching our son to my breast and closing my eyes until it’s over. He falls into me with a sense of trust I can only imagine, whilst I grapple with the possibility I can no longer keep him safe. This endless road, marred by cattle corpses and eager vultures flying low in our slipstream. How could you do what you did?
The newspaper I saved, with a graphic front page able to destroy lives. Monsters in uniform, turning Abu Ghraib into a sun-scarred nightmare. You might share a detail here and there, but your eyes say more than words ever could. A capable man, given skills by his country to export violence over-seas. Colliding with the horizon, you make my body feel rigid and limp simultaneously, a force field around us that let me walk into your life, and never let me leave. Pulling into a gas station with the squeak of an ageing sign preventing the silence from killing us. The pitta patta of tumbleweeds rustling against the dirt can be heard a mile away. You look up at the blazing sun and smile like you feel at home. I guess you know what it’s like to have its warmth taken away from you.
In that sand-drenched bunker with boarded up windows and an unmarked door, a man stands on a box with a bag over his head, both arms spread wide, wearing nothing but a filthy rag. You watch from the back of the room, hurling abuse like you’re at a klan rally. Blood, sweat and mud drip from your knuckles, splashing into the dust and circling the drain in the middle of the room. At home, our son plays with our Muslim neighbours’ daughter on Thursdays. I am afraid of what you will do when you find out. Blinded, while loud noises barrade his ear drums, confused and alone, here comes the colonel to give the ok.
Methodically counting the pennies on the gas pump until it reaches 20 dollars exactly. You jam the hose back in its holster and make your way into the store. The air lightens around me as you carry that blanket of unfinished business inside.In slow-motion, the heel of your boot crushes the cracked ground below, as I imagine falling into that tiny desert crevasse and leaving your fractured psyche behind. Your son watches from the sidelines, unaware of the man you used to be, or the man you’ve become.
In that echo chamber, of orders given, and mortars risen at the sunset like dolphins diving at sea. When you found beauty in violence, when humans became punching bags, and the sounds of screams in the morning reminded you of the birds chirping back home. It shouldn’t have. In that sand storm that never ended, when we thought morality couldn’t be negotiated, you split it open like an atom. Ask them to civilise, after their bodies were brutalised and see the look in their eyes as they raise their black flag. There’s no stopping that darkened silk from spreading, catching the wind, and scorching the earth like a wildfire.
When we fly home and see those green pastures below, things will appear as they should. But while you stare blankly through the seat in front of you, a jarhead with a charred head filled by a murky swamp of pride and regret. My hand gently grazes yours, as I reach for a magazine, an accident but still, I look for that twinkle in your eye, the piece of you I fell in love with. All that remains is a dull ember, waterboarded into submission, a spark so faint, it’s light is extinguished by the task of simply keeping you alive. That shell you occupy, doesn’t have room for the both of us.
Neglected by rust, a piece lost forever, our lives turn to dust, when we get lost together. Stepping off of this plane, a strong gust of wind pulls me deeper into your limp arms. The light reflects off your wedding band as you run your fingers over your scalp, tan line visible below, branded by the blistering sun. I gaze at my empty hand whilst fiddling with the ring in my pocket like I’m flipping a coin. You haven’t even asked me why I’m not wearing it. As the clouds approach to escort us to the car under their torrential protection, acceptance takes over. Willing to live with your walking corpse, for the sake of our child, our son will know his father. Whether the world can let go of your sin, you’ll be engulfed by the love, that you’ll never let in.
The Parts That Stay (Prologue)
We took gravity for granted. Feeling grounded, and…attached, the sound of our footsteps as we let go of the latch. A door opening to a world of green fields and scenes revealed that we never thought we’d miss. A world that went without saying, until it had to be said.
Weightlessness is hard to describe. Living in limbo, like you’re constantly falling but can’t get back up, or even down. As we hang in the balance, your destiny is already in motion. This isn’t the type of fate where you’ll pull the sword from the stone, or lead the free world to victory against the demonic hoard, this is the type of destiny that moves with a fractured whisper, a random event cosmically insignificant, decided by something as tiny as the flap of a butterfly’s wing.
We’ll be watching from the bridge. As sunlight starts to creep over the curvature of our home, the minute hand moves a step closer to midnight. We can’t help but think we could have done more, helpless in our metal vessel, like voyeurs watching an execution behind the safety of protective glass. I press my fingers against the surface, the cold empty space on the other side suffocates us with its apathy.
Here comes the red eye, trailing across the sky. A shooting star falling at the feet of half the planet’s inhabitants like a lost pet who finally found its way home. The crumbling earth turned to a liquid by the impact, a tidal wave flipping civilisation on its head. I can almost hear the screams, in the distance between us, but there is no escape from the final excision. Run and hide as the sun provides its last rays on our trembling soil.
As they split open, ripples throwing everything we built into the atmosphere, our worst fears are realised on a biblical scale. The sins we unveiled, punished in absolute terms. We may not be able to see the Great Wall of China like they always said, but we will witness these amber lines spread all over the world, expanding with each painstaking second.
Silence through the cabin, motionless on the bridge. When all you have left are the people you’re with, hope won’t provide much comfort. Spinning in orbit around a house fire we’re trying so desperately to put out with words. Our fragile home, left in the heat, writhing in agony under a falling white sheet.
We will question why, before we say goodbye, Houston’s static, from the systematic collapse of all of our lives. Those haunted eyes, too young to die, even though it’s over in an instant, they will still try to escape the folding glow, a molten flow rolling itself under the surface for eternity.
The cold waves spread over our bodies, realising we’re the last hope. Confused survivors not knowing whether to even take our next breaths. It all seemed so simple back home, the 9-5, combining wise words from those more qualified to decide, moving through lives like ghosts in the wind, floating from one room to the next, as the light slowly dims. But here we all stand, devoid of guidance, safety nets we used when we were frightened, erode under our star’s last sunset.
Staring into each other’s eyes, wondering how to make a plan when no future exists to fill it. We lay here frozen, our thoughts corroded with the certainty we will never get to see our loved ones again.
With one final look at our broken blue orb, like an apple with a single bite taken out of the middle, we turn to face the blackness. 30 million miles to go. Mars awaits with open arms, a scouting mission where the towering omission of our purpose is thrown to the wayside. 7 billion people relying on our success, is reduced to the members of this room.
We’ll still never rest, until this job is done. Even as earth breaks its orbit, from our lonely sun.
Backless Dress
Wind whistles by the window. The grin sewn across your face since you were a child, lights up the room like a supernova. The dying star buried under your chest, is fading with a flickering glow. Minutes come and go, as a clock ticks down to midnight. You refuse to check the time, with each second even more salient than the last, knowing how many are left would just quell the magic.
This white room with a single cactus sitting, resilient on an empty desk. Your favourite plant, sharp on the outside to keep danger away, requiring no maintenance but still beautiful in its own way. The oasis we all occupy, doesn’t distract you from the desert encroaching from every direction.
Refusing the help of the nurses yet again as you climb out of bed, a glimmer of pain is quickly concealed with your smile. You laugh for a while but soon catch a glimpse of the storm approaching outside. Hands pressed against the cold glass, you can feel the electricity in the air. That blue and white gown flaps in the wind as you slide the window open to feel the breeze. A deep breath in as your eyes start to flutter closed, you feel like your floating as the fear is deposed.
Gripping your IV like your life depends on it, you contemplate commanding your body to fight back instead of giving in, but it won’t. 7 stages of grief, every day till the end, regretting all the time that you didn’t spend doing exactly what you wanted.
You tap your fingers on your chest to the irregular beat of your heart, the part of you I fell in love with, keeping you alive by the skin of its teeth. As I live and breathe, my broken ticker joins yours in the trenches, drenched in the love, enduring time spent with thoughts that we were invincible back home. Since the bells started knelling your tune, your psyche suffered decline. But you manufactured a smile, even as you walked the line between the sun and the shade.
The sum that you paid, disproportionate for the crime of thinking this time would be different. A swift descent into the dark unknown left you broken within, decaying on the inside, protected by a thin porcelain shell that left everyone around you glowing brighter than before.
The grey scape below, soaked to its core, looks back at you ready to swallow your whole body. Dreams trodden lightly by the tips of your toes, you can’t taste the future when the door remains closed. The life that you chose, dismantled by luck, waning in a golden hour apprehended by dusk.
Loose rings on limp hands caressed by floating sheets at the window. You look back at me like a painting holding it’s own frame. Wind, snow, and you, swirling across the rectangles, it’s cold in the city so as we omit the imminence from our minds and face the known with clear heads, the tears shed for what we always knew was coming, fall on unspoilt earth.
That backless dress. Only you could turn this dreary gown into a masterpiece. Colours fade from summers laid to rest by the cold spirit of winter. These messy sheets, once endearingly strewn across your white prison, now carefully made for the next unwilling guest of Kindred Heart. The sun, filling up the room with its golden rays, elegantly grazing over Ellie’s sharp companion. Your spikes are softer now, moving from green to grey, the scenes that stay with you when it all comes to a close, will be you in your most colourful element.
Mourning a spark, sustainable energy in human form, a darkened rain that gave the trees a reason to keep growing.
Through the storms and warm nights sat out on the patio, when your heart started slowing.
Now staring at an empty bed, devoid of your charms,
As you say goodbye to the chaos, and hello to the calm.
Cadence
You are more than a muse. You don’t make me choose, you make me want to be better. Change for my benefit. You better quit your body because you’re god damn selfless. I’m helpless. I felt this before but despite what the atlas of my past says, at last I see the fat list of chances I’ve either passed up or missed is molecular compared to the feeling of missing you. If only you were missing too.
A joke written through the page of our heroes let me see your laugh for the first time. At this part I saw the path I was approaching and steered course, oh if I had a dime. The feeling was haunting, but I kept wanting more. The struggle was daunting so I wept at your door before even knocking and now that I’m locked in, I can’t be restored.
But now here we are, outside my head and enter instead the greenhouse of my affection. The bedroom’s cliche. There’s something about lying awake on a section of carpet that makes gazing into someone’s eyes mean more to me. For to be cuccooned by a captive audience, inching closer together like a caterpillar who can’t wait to transform. Hands warm and scattered with the cold beads of stress-induced sweat. I feel the connection. You don’t feel it yet.
The leads get colder, the stress gets more severe. You turned your head and neglected my fear. It felt neutral, lucid, futile, you slid closer to me every second. For the next few minutes the tension was lessened, while we patiently waited for the penny dropping reminder that this is a dream. But it doesn’t seem to be stopping.
The blurry vignette framed like a halo around your person. I already knew you were an angel, now the stage confirms it. You spun and turned and twisted until the crowd felt distant. All you could see was the blackness and in that instant, all I could see was the actress. The lights dim along with your smile, while the gold ring over your head flickers, almost tactile in its shimmer. The glitter smeared on your cheek catches the spotlight, battling the mascara patches dispatched from the flood.
We say goodbye with a hug. My fingers clench ever so slightly, tightly clinging to your waist. My fingerprints tried their best to tell you my motives but means/opportunity fell without grace. Under my skin, something within, waiting for the words to begin saying what they should have said at the start. Then you depart and a part of me goes with you. The heart that allows me to love again. I vow to never pick up another pen.
As the journey comes to a close, I pull the final sheet of paper out of the typewriter. Walking over to her hospital bed where she lies peacefully, they tell me she’ll sleep for a long while. Except they don’t use the word sleep. I read her the 6 stanzas and place the paper between her fingertips. Today she holds a limper grip.
The canvas of our love remains white and wrapped in cellophane. A bucket of coloured paint waits eagerly next to it, untouched and ingrained with my regret. I take a few steps. With my back to the wall I come close to a prayer. I stare at the clock hanging up there hoping time finally works out how to go backwards. It fractures, stumbles then slowly increases. I plead the doctors give me one more day with her at least, but they say it’s time to make my peace.
I never got to tell her I love her and It’s getting harder to breath.
I move my lips in above her, begging her not to leave.
Bristlecone: Part 1 & 2
1872
The fiery cackle of air pockets popped by the heat. Embers float above our heads and get lost in the stars just before they can reach them.
The canyon below, silent and exposed. Carved into the rock like butter over millennia. A bending blur, watching time lapse over her majesty as we’ve done a 1000 times before.
Running from the law, spending our entire lives with one eye open, so we never get to get to see the bigger picture. A night sky above, with glowing constellations my school mates would have learned about whilst we were rampaging through the wilderness. Looking for something we’d never find, a buried chest in the back of our mind, a lock box with key lost in our childhood. Whilst stood at the edge of the world, looking down at the wild horses below, galloping through the valley where they’ll never feel alone.
Standing next to a young bristlecone pine, sprouting through morning dew. Peaking out of earth’s womb with his whole life ahead of him. Spreading his roots under the surface, slowly becoming part of the ground beneath us. We stare at a life beginning as our lives reach their final act. A fresh start is not a luxury many of us can afford.
Nora, my American Quarter, shuffling in the evening light, hooves to the floor, somehow sensing the imminent war with an army on our doorstep. She nuzzles into my shoulder, breathing deep, moonlight seeping through the shadows to her jet black eyes. Picking up the shaking dirt at her feet, and looking up to the silhouettes rearing on the horizon, her heart rate increases as she feels what’s coming through my trembling fingers.
When enough is enough, the rough times will come to their inevitable conclusion. A pistol in both hands as the Pinkerton’s approach from the west. We linger on, if this is indeed the end, we will go out with the bluster of our fathers before us. The canyon below, the backdrop to our battle tapestry. A battle that will be the end of us. Leaving no man alive, in the shadowy wilds, broken bodies we leave behind, will still fall with a smile.
Our eyes flutter closed in the darkness. Nora rubs her head against my lifeless body. The steam glides like a stream from her nostrils over my icy skin. How do we atone for a lifetime of sin? The pain that we felt within, empties as our bodies press into the soil, paying a debt with a life, as we melt through the floor.
2020
Red blinking lights click on the side of the road. I never listened to the relentless noise back in the city, but out here, the metronome takes over. Motionless on the backseat, my body lies hypnotised by its monotony.
A bristlecone pine sits at the edge of the world, with battle scars and broken bark, through all the years we felt terrified of the past, this towering figure stood the test of time. Stronger than ever, the storms that I weathered have managed to leave their mark. But here we still stand, this ancient organism, curving into the sky to mimic the Arizona wave only a few hours away. You and I crouched under its twisting embrace.
It’s probably the carbarator, or the battery or the gasket or something. Smoke billows from the engine as you stare out at the great expanse. I don’t know what you’re thinking as a single tear rolls down your cheek, but you wipe away the shallow stream before I can ask. Fingers crunch the chalk in your palm as you affectionately caress Mother Nature beneath you. Pushing through bleeding nails and scratched knuckles, as that’s the subtle way you punish yourself for simply existing. You scream into the abyss just to feel something.
The demons, clipping your wings from the back of your mind, pulling your strings until you can barely walk, look on as you break down for the last time. The endless rows of dusty mountains shadowing the valley; the breathing room you want. The wreathing doom you’re trying so desperately to escape. The evening looms, as you watch that orange orb dip under the horizon, feeling like you may never see it’s glow again.
Living as a symptom and a cause, limping through the civil war going on in your head, where it feels like the only way is down. This Grand Canyon, the world’s most beautiful coffin, glowing through millennia, you’re hoping that the end is near, as I tremble on the sidelines, praying you find your second wind. It’s beckoning, an open road, the fresh air converting into fresh starts, the flesh parted on your forearms, a constant reminder of where you’ve been before, and I hope we’ll never be again.
When all the art started losing its colour, when the cellar-door closed and the smell of a freshly mown lawn made you sick, it was time for a change. But you’re still seeing black and white, through 50 shades of red, if the days are dead and gone, of bonfires and wildflowers, look me in the eye and tell me what you want.
Those blue pearls swirling like Andromeda, from the earth you rise to meet my gaze. Sucked into your eyes, it’s hard to believe the darkness they hide beneath them. The blind spot, rearing it’s head in the darkest hour, the mercurial mural painting your next steps almost at random, as you ride like a passenger on someone else’s journey.
As we’re just beginning ours. My hand stretches out to yours, met with a limp grip, I pull your rag doll over my shoulder and carry you to the backseat. Adjusting the mirror before we set out again, the canyon sits below, as it has done for eternity. Through world wars, and worlds torn apart from the inside by feelings I don’t fully understand. Cracked dirt beneath tires, screaming as we turn onto the freeway. A bristlecone pine tilts in a light breeze, perched in front of unchanging hills, and listless dips. Hope dwindles in the dying light, under a darkening eclipse.
Shade Meadow
A harmonised church choir rings through these hills as we pass underneath them. Breathing in pure bliss, an overwhelming sense of calm, anxiety-inducing to those of us used to the panic of the city. Sounds of the rumbling car engine fade into the wind. The clatter of rusted leaves, whipped into a whirlwind by this autumn breeze, graze against the window and welcome us into the arms of Hope County.
Enter a recurring dream, where I’m standing in the middle of a green meadow. Spinning in circles, unable to tell whether I’m lost or exactly where I need to be. I look out into the distance and see a dark cloud approaching, always on the cusp of making it over that mountain ridge, but sitting reluctantly, shaking with a lightning rage, as I bask in the glory of the Indiana sunshine.
Waking with a jolt, my eyes flip open to the sight of rolling hills and snow capped peaks. Ellie with her hands on the wheel, glances over to my longing eyes, praying these hills won’t be the end of us.
Leaving our house, the place we called home, despite never knowing what that word really means, was more difficult than we could have imagined. The cosmic pull of the natural world, working through the task we’ve been coerced into undertaking, has brought us here. Face to face with unimaginable scale, a landscape so vast, perched upon a world so ancient, the brevity of our human existence hits me like a train.
As the night sky melts over these green pastures for the first time, I’m transported yet again to a grassy clearing. The bluebells drooping in the moonlight, sprouting one by one to form a circle around me. They turn their heads up to face mine, awaiting my next move, vibrating with nervous anticipation. The storm at my back, erupting over the mountain tops, finally starts to make its way towards us. I turn to the East, terrified of the darkness in front of me, rumbling over the pastoral expanse. I know deep down, I will have to learn to live in its shadow.
Waking to the sound of birds chirping down the chimney. Waiting patiently for the sirens to fly past my window, but rustling branches is the only sound to find its way into my squinting ears. Eyes staring up at an empty ceiling, heart racing as I picture seeing my father’s face for the first time in 6 years. Carving through a calming landscape whilst I’m paralysed by fear.
Resting my head on the window sill, facing a vibrant forest in all its innocent majesty. A deer pokes its head up above the reeds by the side of the road, looking right at me before bounding off into the distance. My head slumps against the glass as I start to feel the weight of my life growing heavier. Will the face waiting on the other side of that door, it’s colour fading, remember me as I remember him?
Wrapped in white robes and red wires, dementia sealing his memories in the back of his mind where he’ll never find them. He asks me who I am as I place my hand on his trembling fingers. The nurse reassures him that I’m there to help. Our eyes meet, and I begin to stare through those blue orbs, seeing 50 years of memories we shared. Through the good and bad, whether we were sick or well. Before plans turned to door slams, and our lives unravelled in front of us, we were inseparable. First came the argument, then time we spent in silence.
He stares blankly back into mine, with a nervous smile like we’re meeting for the first time. So I smile back.
Ellie watches from the back of the room, as he and I laugh like old friends. A tear rolling down her cheek as she watches me let go of the world, a wistful smile creeps across her face and the encumbered time on our first fearful visit starts to hasten.
Darkness falls again, and the green pastures are replaced by black sand. An arid landscape with gusts of wind blowing the shards of glass across my dry face. The storm moves forward, approaching from the East. Positioning itself above my waiting body. Looking up to the sky, expecting the worst. A single raindrop lands on my cheek. Then another. And another, breaking open like a water balloon above me. The rains fall on these dark dunes until they dissolve into the earth, replaced by our familiar green meadow with bluebells and pine trees. Growing out of the soil, a vibrant garden is finally able to face the world as it was intended.
My eyes slowly flutter open from a deep slumber. I look to my right to Ellie’s head on the pillow, still holding that sweet smile in her sleep. I get up and make my way to the patio, staring out at our dancing meadow. The man in that room with no memory of the past, has forgotten his son. But he will lie in that white bed, with his new friend by his side, receiving every ounce of love that my heart can provide.
Hurricane Clarity
The murmuring rabble of the house that began as a panicked screech from my mother next door, fades into a dull hum.
As we stare at the blue shirt and neat skirt of a shaking anchor on screen, delivering the news like she’s reading a eulogy, I know exactly where I need to be. Slow-motion sets in, as hands move to mouths, I slip out the door to the front of the house. Sprinting to the dusty pick-up outside, as the wind starts picking up, swirling the golden dirt like a choreographed dance. My father screams my name as I speed out of the driveway.
Nora is coming. Switching through the radio channels, trying to find something to match my energy, the same words fill my car on every station. I turn off the stereo and open the window. A level of silence I haven’t heard before, a sense of calm pulsating through my body like a warning of what’s to come. The dark cloud in front of me shakes like it’s alive. Sparks, and sounds of muffled artillery echo through the airwaves, where all the days that we took for granted, position themselves at the forefront of my regret.
The perspective on recklessness changing in an instant, as I stare down the barrel of a category five, there’s one person alive I want to share whatever time I have left with. The dark storm approaches, like a fog lifting from my eyes, exposing the clarity I’d been missing all these years.
You’re standing in front of me in your favourite blue dress, hummingbirds flap their wings in slow-motion as they orbit your body, red leaves fall from above, a gust of wind falls like a wave atop me. But as I look on in awe, the wind getting stronger, reaching out a strained hand to yours as you’re ripped into a whirlwind. Girl, dimming with the evening light. Oil lamps flicker by the window. Soil, damp from the rain, black sky breaking apart at the middle.
Numbers fall out of frame, as the clock ticks down to judgement, putting the pedal to the floor, the love spent on trying to let you in, when I couldn’t even find a way to love myself, wasted time that we just didn’t have. The doves went out to sea and never came back, trust meant I waited at the dock for her to return, but I left before you’d had time to find what you were looking for.
As you move on, entering twilight alone and exposed, my feelings frozen, colder now than before, and unable to change from the peak of loving you. Nothing grew out of my loneliness, lessons learned like depression burned into my brain for eternity. Until now. Your fragile home flapping around in an angry wind, as your father batons down the hatches, your face remains pressed against the cold glass like you knew I was coming.
Slamming my foot onto the brake and heading straight to the house as each individual noise is amplified against a background of calm. Feeling your heartbeat through the floorboards, increasing pace as I make my way up the staircase. There waits the soul I’ve been aching for. Taking more strength than ever before to not lunge at your body like water in the desert. Instead, walking with a creaking certainty. The person we, become in our final moments will always be the legacy we leave behind.
Together we lie here in the eye of the storm, as I stare into yours like I’m trying to find my future in them. Blinks get harder as she approaches, the fire in our blood, stoked with the sound of nails ripping from wood. Roof pulled apart, wails from her mother stood out on the patio. I did all I could, as a flood of dust whips through an open window, the dirt settles on our waiting bodies. Light bulbs above, shaking with expanding light, iridescent waves trapped between us and the ceiling. I pray that there’s still hope, among the rust of our feelings. Whether the end has found its way here, our lives won’t be guided by the compass of fear.
From trust, the seed of our future is planted in baron dirt. Knowing we could have blossomed if things had been different is enough. The spinning grey matter pulling us apart at the seams, destroying our bodies, in what feels like a dream, will fail when it reaches our centre. Broken shells, and short farewells, will soon propel our connection faster than 60 years of tip-toeing ever could. Grip, slowing on your tired bones, goodbyes that I’ll whisper, so you’ll never feel alone.
My father on the doorstep, running through my mind. Staring at the ceiling, running out of time. When the frills fall away, you’re left with the core, the barebones of feelings that you just can’t ignore. In this microcosm, the life that wasn’t enough becomes a distant memory. Between you and me, our seconds numbered, count down to serenity. Closed eyes and wry smiles, one last deep breath, then we’re free. Shaking we, let our hands intertwine, now I see, your plans are mine, and vice versa. Concise words are difficult to come by when describing your soul, as our human shells shatter, and our hearts become whole.
***Watch each priority float out the window when hurricane clarity arrives, bringing with her the confidence to follow through. Say everything you couldn’t say before, when you thought you had the time. When it’s a minute to go, who is it you want to spend your last seconds on earth with? What would you say? What would you do? Catastrophe romance, feeling like you can fit 40 years worth of love into a single hour with the right person, and the right asteroid on the way. “The faded memory of a time before, when I didn’t care whether the world ended, as long as it was with you” is something I really meant. This wasn’t aimed at a specific person, it was aimed at an idea, the intrinsic value of that feeling rushing through your blood, a simple reaction, whoever can provide it. The core principle I will use to navigate my whole future.
Bottleless Pit
A perfect circle made up of empty chairs, so overused, the colours of their rough texture fade from green to grey. Over booze; regretful spirits are itching for a different kind of hit. The suspended mist of dust particles are flicked into the air, existing in limbo between peace and the fray. Today, thin rows of men broken and afraid, line up together to weather decay.
A stationary carousel where we’re each forced to listen to the broken lives of the others. A sigh and a shudder, as my lips start ripping open, glued together by this nervous saliva, the obvious stutter as I stare down at my feet looking for an answer. Studying the pattern of mud on my trainers in more detail than I ever have before, the muffled silence of the room fades to black.
Falling deeper through the valley, trying to climb an amber waterfall to escape, lift your eyes and focus on the habits that you just couldn’t break. Slip and slide through apologies, as the ones that clean up your mess leave for the last time. Sip as lies spun from these lips turn you into someone else. This gulp drives your last hope off the edge, you’re drowning in loneliness as you make the last pledge.
The first step, looking out at the bleak, takes you to your lowest point yet. The bedrock below, an unbreakable barrier finally showing you that the only way is up. There’s a hopelessness to it, as we stare at each other across the room, hoping to hear the answer to our problems through the words of someone else. Their stories, are almost too much to bare, each one more depressing than the last. Tears fall from the face of regret, as stubborn souls finally have the strength to let go.
The commonalities are undeniable, each person unique in their own way, but all with a gaping hole inside them that they’re unable to fill. We all drown together in this spirit sea. Whether it’s apathy, or childhood debris, treading whiskey in pitch black will be even harder alone. If this tide pulls us out to sea, we won’t fight it. Sky whipped into a frenzy, as the cold air swirls over choppy waters. A dark storm forms on the horizon. Cries from the back of the room as we recall all the times we thought we were worthless. The hurt, nestled in the catacombs of our subconscious, terrified of the price of letting someone in, to help fix the broken wires whirring through your mind.
As the words start spilling out, a room of silent nods form a blanket around your shame, I’ve been there before, I know the feeling, when you’re lost in the bottle and just like a bee sting, the liquor pulls you down with it. As your fingers disappear into the foam, unable to act, swallowed by the fact your life’s been undone. The drink may be your last, but the next hit will have to be bigger and better. The bitter and jaegar fall by the wayside, as you chase the dream of a normal life. Hold that new chip up to the light and admire the first positive step you’ve taken in years. The journey to recovery, on a road without fear.
Parting Glass
The sound of silence has a different meaning out here.
As the sun is tucked under the horizon for its evening slumber, tiny waves graze and crash against each other like miniature naval skirmishes. A siren song fills the eardrums of every member of this crew as they drift off, rocking back and forth in Poseidon’s embrace.
With only a few moments left of the dying light, I take one last look through my amber spyglass. Detail of the dock, and the girl waving on the end of it, fade into a blue and white haze. The dancing light sparkling on the choppy waters goes dark, replaced by the white flickers of our evening guide, constellations rotating over our heads as we hoist the main sail.
With each goodbye, we somehow manage to swallow our pride, unable to cry despite coming face to face with our undoing. The knowledge that this will be the last time I can hold your hand. This tiny ship, treading water on a world so incomprehensibly large, will leave this place and never return.
We say hello to the blackness. Slowly expanding, invading the cobalt blue of your iris. Magnetic in their ability to get my attention and keep it, your eyes begin to quiver. When your tear ducts reluctantly let loose the arrows, my body gives in. On our last night, I am yours in totality. Bodies so rapidly becoming whole in the darkness, candles flicker as mysterious energy surges pulsate through the floorboards.
The corners of your mouth, enslaved by the melancholy running through your blood, and unable to keep from twitching. Your sagging lips, so pure and encumbered by the weight of our daunting lives. We both try desperately to forget about the world for a moment.
The parting glass always tastes bittersweet. Filled with the memories we created together, surrounded by storms awaited then weathered. They break apart in the face of our resilience. Revealing a golden goblet glistening with sparks, the parts we’ll remember. Everything else slowly swallowed by embers, leaves nothing but the best of you and I.
Our ship fades into the darkness, occasional claps from the sail catching pockets of air, keep me from drifting off. I’m aching for the dreams where I can see your face again, as resentment for this ocean cradle creeps in. She splashes against the shores of our past, on which my hope is spent. Rubbing sea salt in our wounds, the frothing deep blue is a constant reminder of the distance between us. This, once the scene
of our lust, the bubbling backwash forming chalk lines around our bodies as we lay on our crumbling bed. The crest, twinkling in the red glow as it rolls toward the sand. The surf falls at our feet as we roll over and face the stars above us.
The tide retreated, and so did I. Placing a value on the life I thought I wanted that exceeded what I thought you could provide. Naught but my pride to blame, naught but your eyes can claim my heart for their own. As we turn this ship around, the violent waves, calmed by fast changing winds, form a swell behind us, guiding me into your waiting arms.
Cigregrets
Tobacco on your tongue, the black grows on your lungs after years of abuse. It’s cold in the city, I was told you’d be with me after the doctors deduced you had a few months to live free. It’s time to reduce, and know once the snow melts, your glow is revealed, healing the pain that you felt. Yellow fingers, and echoes linger from the habit leaving you in the ER. Three yards from our door, you collapsed on the floor, all of us wishing we could just go back to before.
Caught by the bright, sourcing a light in the height of winter proved difficult, adrift adults living with splinters, disinter of your demons reduced you to a whisper. Crisp air fills your lungs as you stare through the fog. Bogged down by pain pills and cigs that you drop. Desire took over, as your needs were eclipsed. Your hands shake as another stick hits your lips.
Dark skies and grey streets, goodbyes today mean I won’t see you for a while. Adventures we planned getting thrown to the pile. Raccoon eyes, and tears dried by the wind chill outside, you march through the blizzard where you know you can hide.
Alone with the pack. Your bones tightly wrapped for the journey ahead. Marlboros and tar burrows through your organs. Spread and divide, instead of your eyes, emptiness fills the void of the morning.
Found in the garden, on your knees you will toil. Your hands are steady as green erupts from the soil. Spring comes as things done to help you out of the grey, give way to change and addiction decay. Nicotine inside patches, the snow cleaned like ashes on your driveway. Alive today, your fingers press against the wet grass, cassette harps drive the pain to the back of your mind. Hurdles you get past, will seem smaller with time.