But now I know on

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.

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.

Ordinary

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.

At the end

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?

Set

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..

And slowly, like the movement of a living statue, the feathers began to fall from her wings; Each floated and danced through the still air, until they were all gathered around her feet and covered in dark blood, leaving only frail bones extending from her ribs and hanging ghastly.

In the same manner the stars began to flicker in her eyes, then bursting and dying one after another, some left unnoticeable brown and green nebulas across her pupils, while others only deep patches of perfect darkness.

She began to rip out and break the fragile bones hanging from her back , and when she finished, she stepped out from pile of stained white as if it were a discarded dress. She blinked,wiping away the marks of late stars from her eyes.

Naked and blind, she began to wander .

Growing apart is inevitable for strangers. That’s what we were, no? Despite the years of cold, dead letters. Despite the ear piercing, blinding blast of a long forgotten December.

The contours of your face have suddenly blurred in my dreams; the reflections turned faint and colourless, as if it were muddy waters we had stared into.

I embraced the certitude of our complete lack of gravity long ago. I accepted that while we may drift together again, we would just as seamlessly drift apart, directionless.

And yet I carry you on the edge of my skin, still. And every subtle movement of my fingers holds a bit of you.

One of those days

When I wake from the dream and wrap my body in the fading warmth of your ghost. You bleed through my pores and my limbs tense as I wait for the longing to fade..

I stare at my naked refection, see your hands on my neck and grasp them, but they fall through my fingers like sand. I see your head on my shoulder, your lips curved into a tortured smile and my body trembles and begs to shake you off.

It’s one of those days when your name lingers on my tongue like warm honey, and your resurected whispers turn the air to black smoke in my lungs.