I watched you swim away from the shore. I waved as you swam further out under the darkening clouds.
I watched you dissapear when the waves grew; and I sat on the stones through the rain and the night; through the storms and the burning skies, I watched the horizon for a sign of you.
My limbs turned to sand and my calls to damp wind, but you came. Oh, my love, I knew you would return.
And when I saw you last, and kissed you, I turned within myself like a caged beast. I didn’t look behind so you won’t see the cold which filled my bones since the last kiss.
I knew you had a smile in one corner of your lips – stiletto sharp – to hide it in my blouse so it can gently pierce into my flesh as I leave.
I felt the beat of broken heart already, it slowed the fire in my step. But didn’t grasp the fury of the storm which nestled in my senses when I left.
You didn’t know you built yourself within me, flesh and soul from the very first time. That you bled Death’s own poison in my veins, when you sold me, like Judas, with a kiss.
But now I know, though it’s too late, that I was just a dove above your shoulder. I ripped the white wings from my back and quietly placed them on a heartbeat that still remembered.
I don’t know if I chose you, or I was destined yours; but I know I was not made out of your rib like Eve of Adam’s; I couldn’t build myself in you as sin in a temptation. I wasn’t light within your temple, I had no altar in your flesh.
Perhaps you pulled me from a dream that wept unnoticed on your pillow, and I slipped gently to your lips so you could build me from a whisper; or carve me out of darkness as an eternal faith.
Your love, I don’t know what it was. But mine – a flood of buds; which crowded in my flesh to bloom my bones into a spring. And from the wounds of my ripped wings flew insects, discarding my body like a sinful angel.
In my mortal eyes you were god’s offspring. But in your scornful love was raging fire, born from the candles of a self, which took us both to hell… and heaven.
And everytime you held me I felt the wings between us, the rib I wasn’t made of piercing through my skin. My eyelids draped over my bare flesh, when we made love like beasts to hide our strangeness.
And silent like two stones, one burried in the other, we drank eternity with hollow mouths; but failed to find each other in the secrets of stolen moments of the past.
But now I know, though it’s too late, that the eternity you gave me was damnation. I ripped my angel wings each time your love dressed me in dreams of insects and bloomed me into spring.
I wonder, my love, if in your little bubble, the scent of my skin ever sneaks. If the eyes that muddled your words ever stare at you in the night. If you whisper my name in your sleep, and your lips tremble when you say it. Do you still hear my words in your ears, feel my fingers wraped around your curls, your head pulled back against my chest.
I wonder, my love, does the reflection haunt you at night? Our legs wrapped around each others burning bodies, your hands on my back and my neck taut, our lips open and silent, our eyes intoxicated with the years of agony.
I wonder, my love, do you still hear my laugh in the mornings, my contagious, room-filling giggle that made your eyes shine with such joy. Do you still feel the softness of my hair against your face, the pulse in my neck against yours.
Oh, my love; you left me naked in the harshest of winters. When I loved you freely and with no reserve; as if my heart had been virgin and whole. When I loved you madly, purely and carelessly… and you left.
Oh, my love, you left…
You were my last bet. I gambled the last piece of my soul on a losing game, convinced I would lose yet so drunk with its charm.
When the house took my last chip and saw what it was made of, they sighed for me; they gave me a room on the highest floor so that I may jump to my peace.
I hope that you are content, and thoughts of me don’t make you tremble in your sleep. That you don’t wake at midnight and sigh when she doesn’t sit up watching you like I did. I hope you don’t weep when you don’t drown in her eyes like you did in mine.
I hope she doesn’t trouble you with dreams and fantasies, that she’s grounded and rational like I was not.. that her love is peaceful and secure, not wild and fiery like mine was.
I hope that she doesn’t tighten her fingers around your throat when you fuck, that her lips don’t burn through your flesh when she calls your name.
You chose ordinary, my love. So I pray our love born in hell doesn’t make you ache to return.
I wish I had kept a piece of you now. I wish I didn’t rip the skin off where it smelled like yours. Oh God, I can’t believe you’re gone.
You were the one who stayed, the one who came back.. who wrapped my wounds in your whispers when my flesh was falling off the bones. You weren’t supposed to leave me floating but to pull me out and throw me in again.. and again.
You know I have witchcraft and Satan. You know that I can bring you back yet you know that I won’t. You believe that I’ll ask the goddess for your joy and not for your return. And you’re a fool; she told me that joy doesn’t wander through the world anymore, not since December. She told me that you’re wasting your time searching, since she hid it in the palm of my hand when I was twisting your hair around my fingers.
I did ask that you are forgiven, that your sins be washed in the salt of my tears but she laughed. We’re both fools; yet I was the one who stayed, the one who would have stayed for eternity.
I burned my tarot cards with your letters and there was black smoke. It smelled like hot bodies and sin, it sounded like mirros cracking into a thousand pieces. I blew the ashes in the ocean between us and prayed that you forget. But the goddess laughed a wild laugh and blew them back in my face.
I’ll let you walk in circles for a while. I’ll let you stumble on the words you refused to say and choke on the breaths you held when we fucked. But I’ll come to you in your dreams; it’ll be my only revenge.
He was writing for me, not for him. Dead cold, a shield of lead behind the bow.
I had been walking through the sky for a while, the coast ended a while back but as long as I didn’t look… God, I didn’t think the land was so far down, I didn’t think it was concrete.
And I don’t remember how to move now that he’s gone. My limbs twitch, my head falls to the side. The endless waiting I could deal with, but the end?
I sit, staring at the horizon, counting the waves and the flickers of light from another sunset. I gather my limbs and wrap them around me to embrace the approaching night. They walk past; children, couples and dogs, dare not look at the body turning to beach, but stare out to the same sea. Their eyes are not searching; they see the sun and the coast; they don’t count the waves.
A few nights ago, when my lips crumbled, I had resolved to leave. But I saw a hand out there by the ships; or was it a bird.. then I noticed the seagulls flying off with my feet and I resolved to stay.
There’s a beach near St Ives where we sat one clear night in September. You won’t remember it, but you were there, leaning on a rock too close to the waves and the water filled your trainers and I laughed, alone..
There’s a bar in Naples near the gulf, where we sat drinking Merlot one rainy afternoon. You won’t remember it, but you were there, the wine left crimson marks on the corners of your lips and I laughed, alone..
There’s a lake in Annecy where we hired a boat and wandered. You won’t remember it, but you were there, it started to rain and the water dripped from your curls and I laughed, alone..
I’m still chosing the place to let go of your ghost..
