i must be dreaming

can you hear the circus music in your memory?
I saved you a ticket again, but you never came
the lions are all dead, their glistening teeth
long gone in the once hollow pockets of
the audience- yes, they had plucked them out
the seal has skin like glimmering ash
a little pearly and deceiving but inside,
it is empty, starving, broken and dead
it’s been screaming bloody murder
for the past damn hour (you are still not here)
I told you it’s dark inside
the wooden benches have snapped apart
like all the hearts of those hollow headed
tightrope walkers- they are no longer proud
of how high up they can walk the line, for
they still cannot see you in the distance
no matter how many storeys up they go
this is a broken circus that no longer sings
the tickets are stained that crimson red
which drizzled from the ringmaster
hung above, throat slashed and marked
the roar has downed itself to static silence
(your silence has lost its dazzling glamour,
we now hold the prize for best silence)
the circus waited far too long for someone
who forgot all their favourite performing acts
(it was all for you all for you all for you)
I am the last and only one left here now
I cannot read the time again
has it been days, months or years?
we are all half-children
with half-hearts, half-bones and half-words
do not fall so fully for his act
sinners crawl under the skin of saints
Time is broken here, you know?
maybe a circus finally dies and rots away
when the feeling of a crowd stops visiting.

the swell of your name still resides
safely and soundly inside my chest
how are you, having survived the smoke?
I remember the death in Venus’ eyes
as we set her fingers and tongue aflame
we were only playing with fire, harmless fun
I remember the tarry wings beating high
their beady eyes staring stones into
our bleeding skin, and blistering feet
I can still feel the pull of their ebony beaks
can you still hear the ringing of their cawing
in your ears? after all, a murder of crows
can only scream murder to the crying gods
I remember kissing the light with our fingers
bent backwards, and our nails ashen with fright
Morpheus, come forward now, we are tired
I need the shelter of your wings over me
my eyes are tired of blinking and I cannot
feel the lullaby of sleep by counting sheep
1, 2, 3, 4,… 18? do you remember at all?
how we hopscotched with tasteless smokes
dangling from our cracking, honey lips
& how the light spilt from our cracking bones?
you said if we broke a rib bone or two,
it’s just like snapping a wishbone apart…
except this one speared right at our hearts
funny how we used to believe in Magic
when It let us down, crest fallen into the
empty banks of River Styx- shift’s over,
the fallen angels have all gone home

we are scrubbing the summer
off our calloused palms
and cleaning the supernovas
out of our swollen veins
it is midnight again and
tonight I can see myself shining
in your eyes (or am I dreaming?)
our heads were always so so thick
lips kissing smoke so acrid
the clock has struck us down again
we used to match and now we’re just
matches burning out
please don’t come back home anymore
the fire has blackened your whole soul
you have fierceness
that swallows up
all the paleness
of the golden sky
love, don’t fly around me now
we don’t have time for that now
(no. not anymore)
perhaps I liked it better
with the smoke
but I’ve been exhausted
from burning just as much

dial Gravity down, a hundred notches
let’s hit that corner store we hung around
the days, the weeks, the months before
when you’re back for the weekend
we’ll get that eighteen pack of smokes
no we’re never gonna quit it, are we??
we’ll get high on thunder clouds
lightning zipping through our veins
as we interlock fingers that mean nothing
but everything… just… as much

flip the pages a thousand states over
I am tracing all the black on your wrists
thumbs all over the place, wishing…
you’d stop looking for the moon
you’ll talk to me about that girl of seventeen
shake off the dust crowding my brain
and hang a skeleton of light over my frame
as we watch a movie replay over & over again

tuck away these high strung tales
I’ll miss the way you tucked my hair behind
and you’ll miss the way I told you jokes
funny how you think I’m so funny,
when she never ever did
we’ve lost to the COMMON again
forget those smokes, they have been lost
I know it doesn’t feel like home over there
but time will sooth the ache.
cities will sleep again
and our bruises, will unknot.

let me kiss the blue
staining your wrists
love, I will not leave you
so down on your knees
I’ll bring you through
the supermarket,
laugh with you
and fall into snow angels
together, together
(I know you already
love somebody else,
but please still stay)
we’ll know if it’s real
if it hurts in the morning
let our words mingle
into something else
they’ll be different
but shine all the same
these eyes are bruising up
over again; these veins
are bleeding clean and
spinning out the moon
I know your muscles are heavy
from running all around
let your tiredness guide you here
and have you stay for the night
and forever
and forever
after that

I’ve painted a shade of honey
on the roof of my mouth again
I’ll never learn to swallow
all this glimmering gold,
to hold it back like dreams
would you take me back
in the morning if I promised
to never act this way again?
he would know, he says
love, sweetheart, princess
do not leave my side
but we are skin to skin
and the sun still sleeps
(I think it’s just me,
who feels nothing)
he is asking about you again
cut-throat misery staining
his words. his words. his words,
do not fill me up enough like yours
I can taste the shooting stars
poppin’ off under my tongue
urging me to speak easy
and talk about love to him,
as if it were not a falsity
but I stay silent,
bite back my hopes
I have mastered the art of silence
as you would have loved
I can feel the shaking of his arms on me
the disappointment is deafening
in my silence
he will leave only because
I could never have stayed
I can still feel your ghostly embrace
coiled and twisted around my ribcage
those same hands still around my mouth
I know, love. I know.
We took our time but
didn’t mean for it to be like this.

under the city’s skin
the red roads run low
our wounds are yawning
in cold comfort, as if
to say the past
can only stay
if we allow it to
can you hear heavy wings
beating high up in the sky?
the fully fledged Icarus
fell as well as we did
after all, we are both blooming
in the wake of our grief
how do I unsee God
when there is nothing
left here to pray for
there are crying ghosts
swelling up our eyelids
the sound of tomorrow
seems so far away but
the creaking of that old piano
and your singing is so close by
all the notes may be empty
but at least they’re still here

we’ve got a picnic mat sat out as if
we were ever ready for love to begin
The Rabbit’s late again,
feet tap dancing
across the singing lawn
you talk about missing him so often
sweetheart, you know who he is,
don’t act like you don’t know
who you really, really love
The Rabbit and I share a commonality
we keep losing time and then find it
in all the wrong places, in all the wrong cuts
He is crashing into picnic dates
and slashing wrists with that antique clock
all that ticking puts me off so much
I look at the star outside my window again
& blow out shooting stars like funeral pyres
wishing you’d come back again
The Rabbit’s footsteps are rain pitter patter
this time, He waltzes down the rabbit hole,
as if falling (out of love) were a slow dance
it is not. it is dirt crashing into eyelids,
hands peeling skin off to wash clean
all the sickly sweet words that’s been
killing you. it is starlight kissing you goodnight
as you pass out of exhaustion from staying up
a week straight waiting for someone who was
never good with time.
the mood sets into a sunset again
and hey, time is dripping away from a faucet
now, The Rabbit and I just sit in static silence
staring at time as if it were gold but
it is only filthy water that cleanses us
like a psalm I could never forget
my palms have cut themselves again

is it half past something?
I cannot make out the time
love, I think you’re speaking
in soliloquies yet again
for you talk so dreamily
about a life I am not part of
have I lost my part in your life
so soon already?
what’s the time now?
it must be half past forever
(I think I’ve lost you to forever)
if Life were a clock, it’d have
so many faces; constantly switching
in and out, in and out, in…
I don’t think you’ll recognize me the next time
Forever has stuck itself under my skin
smoking in accents I cannot understand
hold my cold hands, love, I know
the veins are bursting with soot and
my blood doesn’t run smooth anymore
(Am I Unreal? or is Time Unreal?)
I’m counting in seconds again
and I’ve forgotten how to breathe
but tonight, I forget I am afraid just as well
as you have forgotten me (don’t.
I need you to remember.
you made me unafraid)
I’m not a kid anymore. I can’t be. but,
I still need you to hold these freezing hands
and look at me straight in the eye
before I lose sight of that sun in your eyes

if promises were kept full,
I may have fallen asleep
in your arms by now
I know the sleepless nights
haunting your voice so well
I wonder how you don’t
even notice them at all
if promises were kept full,
I wouldn’t have fallen into
abysses of darkness,
of nights so cold
your talk of silence has
wrapped itself around
my goddamn head,
entangling its blood cold
murderous thoughts
into my veins and
suffocating me.
I watch us begin again
in my mind,
replaying
again
again
again