i must be dreaming

one day, we will home ourselves to the feeling of our own arms. I will pick you up, look into your eyes and you will taste the skies again. we will play little games, trying to fit shapes into the hole in your heart until it is no longer void of love. we will fit something more than us, a feeling more than ourselves, so that when your heart swells, it is only love. no pain, just love. what do you want them to say when you’re gone, that you gave up or you kept going on? I remember the feelings even though the pictures have faded. I remember loss, because you taught me so. should we hold on or let go now? what do you do when a chapter ends?

you’re asking why my hands feel so cold
and why my knuckles are always red,
why my palms are filled with bleeding lines,
why the skin on my fingers are so crumpled
like bedsheets well used but neglected
by the time morning/mourning comes
do you know? I’ve washed all ten nails,
all ten pretty but bruised nails, 29 times,
in the past hour, as if running water
could clean out the sizzling supernovas
I’ve shoved under my skin
every time you made my brain sleep
but I refused to show
can you show me how to fix myself?
I wash my hands a 19 more these days
how can you not see that on Saturdays,
the tap spills common gold?
my hands are dying to shine just as much
but they only sear under the fiery touch
the blisters erupt like angry gods
I can feel your arms withering
withdrawing themselves away
again, so,
can you really love me most?
or should I love me most?

(I like to see you but then again that doesn’t mean you mean that much to me.)

I see you in every stranger
with the exact same name
I’ve been cursing every god
you went down on your knees for
just to feel something
more than yourself
can you keep me close?
can you love me most?
imagine the skeleton of morning light
hanging from above like a suicide case
these days I am dreaming on ceilings
lying about you to my friends
we all need someone to stay, don’t we?
will you fix me up?
will you show me hope?
by the time the morning light streams in
and we can taste our own grief,
will you still be in love with the same girl?
you say I’ve shown you how to stay in love
but with the moment, or the girl?
will you still love me?
I think I’ve lost my taste for gold these days
you used to have such an uncommon face
now I see you in the little parts of everyone else
and maybe, maybe,
you were just as common as they

the vacancy of these fairgrounds
is so alarmingly deafening
we are still in the wake of our grief
should we be in full bloom by now instead?
your eyes are shining with reverence again
what have we lost today? to what?
do you still care the same way?
the discontented audience have long left
but the emptiness of the circus lingers still
the performers hide behind those red curtains
faces flushed with shame and sorrow
tonight, the stars have gone to bed early
even they are sick of listening
to the ringmaster’s endless sobbing
darling everything’s on fire again…
I find myself sleeping outside the tents
brain wrecked from a pendulum of questions
would your hands play the piano
the same old way for me?
would you wait for the morning light with me
even though the music is long gone?
would we be safe and sound even though
the war outside our door keeps raging on?
my palms and fingertips are stained
shades of red, blue and purple
from the rained down tickets
I gripped so tightly onto
or something else…
I’m not sure anymore
perhaps I have lost someone
who never intended to stay

MY HEELS ARE TIRED FROM TURNING AND TURNING TRYING TO SAY A GOODBYE I’M NOT SURE I WANT. I’VE GIVEN MY HEART A BEATING BUT MY PULSE STILL TIRELESSLY LIVES. IT ISN’T FAIR TO YOU AND THEY’LL GO ON ABOUT HOW SELFISH I AM BUT YOU’RE A MEDICINE TO ME AND I CAN’T REMEMBER A TIME WHEN I’VE GONE BY WITHOUT MEDICINE. I’M TALKING IN COMMON GOLD AGAIN AND MY WATCH IS SET TO SHAKESPEARE’S TIME. BOY, THIS MUST BE MY PRETTY DREAM AGAIN. I LISTEN TO HIM CONFESSING IN VERSES THAT ONLY EMPTY MY HEAD. HE WOULD KNOW THE SAME EMPTINESS THAT EATS AWAY AT YOU FOR A LIFETIME. I FELT IT IN THOSE SHAKING ARMS, YET HE IS SAYING, LOVE, DO NOT LEAVE MY SIDE. BUT I AM BY YOUR SIDE TODAY. AGAIN. I DON’T REMEMBER WHY AND I CANNOT TELL THE TIME. I KEEP DREAMING IN HALF-TIME. SHE SAYS “SWEETHEART YOU RID ME OF MY BLUES, BUT I HAVEN’T GOT A CLUE ABOUT THE DREAM YOU KEEP YAPPIN’ ON ABOUT.” I YEARN FOR THE DAY I LEARN HOW TO FEEL LIKE I’M HOME AT LAST. I HAVE JESUS TALKING IN THE BACKGROUND AND IT SEEMS LIKE THE TIME IS AT A COMMON AGAIN. I WISH YOU’D SHUT YOUR MOUTH SOMETIMES BECAUSE I’VE LOVED THE GOLD DRIPPING OUT OF IT FOR FAR TOO LONG. YOU’RE MY MEDICINE, DON’T YOU KNOW? DO YOU MIND FOR ME TO BE SELFISH THIS ONCE? OR TWICE? I GUESS I’LL NEVER LEARN, WILL I? HE IS TRACING MOONS ONTO MY WRISTS AGAIN, SAYING HOW HE’S SO LUCKY TO HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE. HOW COULD I REFUSE SUCH A DREAMY REALITY? I GUESS I COULD ASK YOU TO WALK AWAY INSTEAD, SINCE I CAN’T DO IT AT ALL. CAN I? can I? can I?

maybe I could

is that why we’re here again today?
pouring our hearts out
for the love of a god
we never believed in
I see the house cat lapping in a milk
that’s been poured in since the afternoon
I didn’t think time would matter anymore
but we’ve been locked in a facedown
for hours… and hours……
I’m sorry the sun still sleeps
when you come around
when we all grow old, I hope
all this reminds you of home
I think that’s why we keep coming back here,
months after months wearing optimistic grins
I can taste the honey of the words
she would have told me on my lips
should I ever find a way
to make all this pain go
I can hear the gold falling down from your eyes
we should be quiet, or the others will hear us
allow my words to water down your pain
we’re losing our tongues by the minute
and I really didn’t think time would matter
but the sun must be dreaming by now
it’s time we stopped contemplating
and actually visit that boy and girl
we loved by the river we loved
can you dream of him tonight instead?
I’m so sorry the nicotine doesn’t work anymore
and your hands are burning up again
let them rest here tonight
dream of your favourite inferno skies
and mumble in your sleep about him
it won’t matter in a couple of hours
we’ll both be gone by the morning anyway

it is the strange sentiment
rolled up with tobacco today
a sort of yearning for those same hours
and for those same places we called ours
I dream of us, heads bent over letters
you will acquiesce in my reasoned rhetoric
only because I do not let you speak
but then the monstrosity of reality
sweeps me off my feet
with my lungs in tar
I forget my medicine again
and you forget the time
and call up at an hour
that reminds you of her

you’re a medicine to me
don’t you mind? don’t you mind?
we should drive away again
with Sunday on our minds
the prospect of love isn’t
too far gone, is it?
you’re my medicine
don’t you mind at all?
I can see sun spilling down
those weathered cheeks
let’s wait for sundown again
my old pills only kick in around 9
it’s so hard to say goodbye
love please,
just hang ‘round a little longer
I swear my brain isn’t opiated by
the smell of our yesterday today
the past just looks better sorrowfully
but soundly, sleeping under my eyes
you’re a medicine, you’re a medicine
do you feel the sun in your veins?
I think your wrists are soaking up again
you’re my medicine so please
stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay
wait with me for the sun’s facedown
and for the dulling burn under my tongue
to leave for the night (I can keep a promise
if you keep my smokes away from me for me)
you’re more of the medicine now
so stay, stay, stay, stay, stay for an hour more
why you talk so loud now?
so polemic in the way you talk
but you’re my medicine, please don’t mind

I keep seeing you at the altar
eyes opiated by smoky dreams
and the feeling of talking above
the sound of God in the background
you should forget that you and I
were just like gemini feed
you’re going off again
a thousand states over
mistaking names and “I love you"s
fashioning them into forms
of sonnets, of poems, of love songs
it all tastes the same the same the same
so we should both stop acting up
chasing dreams are so much harder
than they always seem and today
I see that you’re cheating on your girlfriend
in a raincoat made of white roses, again
I don’t suppose you know
what you’re doing wrong anyway
could you peel the white off those roses
and slip them down my throat for me?
I’d like to mend my broken voice and
blackened lungs with a shade of saint
I don’t suppose you know
how I’m doing worse off anyway
how I’d love for us to go to Paris again
my hands are stained with the blood
of crowded places from yesterday
do you remember the fire
burning through our wrists?
I thought you’d miss that the most