onemoretime
Your hair, this morning, turned gold by the sun. My hands reaching for you, the need to touch, to hold. You: soft skin, blue veins like rivers underneath. Your eyes moving in twitches and rolls under your eyelids, chasing some dream-sight. My head on your chest, listening to you breathe from the inside.
Yesterday I woke up
and realized
that I exist.
You were sleeping beside
me,
material
skin and bones and muscles and
tendons
all breath and mass and
small movements
and my heart was beating
in my wrists and temples
the texture of your skin
on my skin
almost too much to
handle
as tightly as I curled
into myself
organs tight-packed
together, bones
touching through skin, I
could not
disappear.
He has this
strange sort of cynicism
The kind that allows for hope
[but not the word itself].
In his mind
he is the monk,
the self-sacrificer.
He leads the charge against injustice
and he fights the demons of the world
with truth-weapons.
He says,
I See You
I Know You
and the shadows run.
There are things hidden
under blankets, under skin
in that space between muscle and bone.
Things that shine
and scratch;
sharp-edged things
winged things
caught in the sinews.
That is the restlessness,
the ache;
the moon-howling is theirs,
and the running.
One incision and they will be free.
In the upper reaches of the atmosphere
there is a cold, cold wind blowing.
And oh, it chills the bones
and makes them brittle
and that is why we break
so easily.
When we fall from the sky
[through thunderclouds]
the wind whistles through the holes in us-
the ones we are born with
and we spend our whole lives
filling up.
Reaching, reaching out.
And the harder you clutch at it,
the more it will struggle
The more it will scratch at your arms
the more it will skitter, hissing, away.
The trick is to ignore it.
Then, like a child,
it will come creeping up behind you
and wrapping you up in its arms
(wanting)
wondering why you ignored it
for so long.
Before the storm, they had lived in a small red house with a small blue door and ivy climbing up the side. There was an orange cat who had decided he belonged to them, or perhaps they to him, and would come to the porch every morning at precisely six a.m. for cream and a bit of fish. Annie had insisted that his name was Timothy, and that he was their guardian angel, and Morgan had never objected. They had had grand adventures together, Annie and Timothy, tumbling about in the garden and murmuring to each other in that secret way that cats and children do. Then the water came rushing into the house and up around their ankles and poured down into their throats, and who could hear a small cat meowing over the rush of water? We really must forgive Timothy, for he tried his best. But a cat does have survival instincts.
The imaginary gunshot slices into the morning chill and her legs are moving and stretching, sinuous. Lungs and ribs aching to hold enough oxygen.
As the breath rushes to escape her lungs, her eyes open as if for the first time. Suddenly she can feel. There- see how green the trees, feel how soft the grass. Everything moving together, breathing in and out in waves, an ocean of colour and sound and touch.
The first and most important thing is the heat. They say heat is suffocating but this heat is different, dry, creeping pleasantly down my back. My skin is too white and I can feel it slowly cooking but the sunlight is just too lovely. I will live with the burns.
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