(no subject)
Just because it's weird not to have this in my journal (since basically everything else I've ever written is):
---
i. do you love?
shhh. enough to paddle rafts across atlantic oceans
to brush fingers.
don't speak.
for this, I forsake my own centuries, chronologically absent
of you. I was there dragging pyramids from sand;
I was there.
(if love spans time,
non-linear, then I was a drop of salt
in your ocean when the world was new. I
was there for the celebrated supernova; we
were born of wrought iron and
fireworks and
heat.)
-and it was all empty.
ii.
the oracle of Delphi knew; I was not
groping for gods.
(you were not born yet, but I was upon
waves. I have died against rock and
sail before your time; I have been
Helen without hope.
and I was there forging wars from beauty, and they
were waged with wrought iron and
fireworks
and heat.)
I knew and I didn’t that the world
would not end before now.
I know and I don’t that we
still have time.
iii.
the ebb and flow of monsoons like your breathing -
you, the drought’s lullaby,
you.
there are beasts wild enough to tame strips
of skin from your bones, I know.
but you’re safe here.
(I was the heart of Africa, dark
and waiting; I was low on the horizon
when the meteor hit. I saw it
coming, for all its wrought
iron, and
fireworks, and heat.)
-and I saw the after, and it
was something.
iv.
I rode the crest of the crescendo to
this moment; I was there,
and you,
and you.
shhh. don’t speak.
---
---
i. do you love?
shhh. enough to paddle rafts across atlantic oceans
to brush fingers.
don't speak.
for this, I forsake my own centuries, chronologically absent
of you. I was there dragging pyramids from sand;
I was there.
(if love spans time,
non-linear, then I was a drop of salt
in your ocean when the world was new. I
was there for the celebrated supernova; we
were born of wrought iron and
fireworks and
heat.)
-and it was all empty.
ii.
the oracle of Delphi knew; I was not
groping for gods.
(you were not born yet, but I was upon
waves. I have died against rock and
sail before your time; I have been
Helen without hope.
and I was there forging wars from beauty, and they
were waged with wrought iron and
fireworks
and heat.)
I knew and I didn’t that the world
would not end before now.
I know and I don’t that we
still have time.
iii.
the ebb and flow of monsoons like your breathing -
you, the drought’s lullaby,
you.
there are beasts wild enough to tame strips
of skin from your bones, I know.
but you’re safe here.
(I was the heart of Africa, dark
and waiting; I was low on the horizon
when the meteor hit. I saw it
coming, for all its wrought
iron, and
fireworks, and heat.)
-and I saw the after, and it
was something.
iv.
I rode the crest of the crescendo to
this moment; I was there,
and you,
and you.
shhh. don’t speak.
---