The charts told me he'd be the one to seal my heart with him, that we'd rampage together, articulating the living proof and all that comes with sitting on rocks, raising the soul up from the rectum to the sky.
But I felt the beat of the automaton in the darkness—he was howling for want of light, and I cried like a buck on the hill, stampeding our forests.
We are the best of us at night, at parties; our campwood hearts like bowstrings twanging over the fire—despite that distance between everyone over me—for fear of the bricks exploding—we're all listening—in the rattling van, panes sound like paper delights in catching fire.
In the causeway, we drown for a bite of the apple—meditate hopeless on a string of beads tied to the wrist of a girl resting on a bed out to sea—who clutches cackles of humor in each fist, grappling with will or won't it,
until the other comes back from their midnight—holding each other's hands all desperate in the truth, in the pond, effortless, wise—going blind, going wild, frothing—taking fruits hallucinogenic like new life:
more spring than spring is what I want from any "us", my darling.
I catch love on the upswing and we share a glance that we both misunderstand, but sign union regardless, checking, catching up with the highway signs.
Don't come in, I'm trying to change, but our time is constricted by blue light vortexes—addiction cracking in the night for something to do, loosen your head, unscrew, relax—
Let's have a fire while everyone's out to dinner—let me cure your aches but you have to ask clearly for it—I'm in every pore of your skin but you, you, come meekly and ask what happens when you pleasure me—or try to—
We've got it going on: the headstand, the rush, the capstan, all sails full, on toward Moby Dick and reckless expansion.
After everything is ended, No—everything is ended. It is time to end.
The captain finds me waiting at the crossing hungover, hoping to find someone to put my burdens onto, to pass my life onto—too stupid to know that lives spoil when stacked, that gentle fruits must be kept separate
for echo is the soul of the voice exciting itself in hollow places. *
*(Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient. 1992.)
