i have seen the seven signs and this is how the world will unfold
i. the pathos of cholera. when first i watched you kissing her, the other woman, the other half of who you were then, i remember biting my lip and turning jealousy into a moaning reality. underneath your eyelids, warm and damp with nighttime visions, i became covert, i became your guardian! silently i absorbed you with the thawing winter; in time you will grow within me like a roman god, flesh in form, fit for modern ages.
ii. vltava, danube. i have become obsessed with war crimes, with total annihilation, and i have become obsessed with the unfathomable resilience and strength of human spirit. i am weak at heart, you are pride personified, and as a collective entity, reconstruction and survival become inherent. we are nothing but symbols of beauty amidst terror and tragedy. twice in two years i have settled completely into the debris of ruin, have wept in the darkest of hours. it was only in my purest states of sadness that i realized the poignancy of your impact. unbearable yesterday, recovered from today, forgotten tomorrow; there are cycles of destruction and reinvention that travel and flow through history like the rivers.
iii. boiling ice, rose pistol. you have not fallen in love with me as a whole, but with the hundreds of sides i show throughout the day. in the morning, it is the way i wake and stretch and stand near the window. you fall in love with my glance and long to capture it. at noon, as i walk along the waterfront and out onto the pier, while fingering through my hair you fall in love with the sound of my inhalation. you want to become the air i breathe to circle in my lungs. in the late afternoon while sipping coffee, while staining my lips and playfully arguing about revolution on the canvas and on the page, you fall in love with my girlish passion. you fall in love with my moments, with my half-truths and temporary aesthetics. in moments like these, you shoot dozens of photographs, mind-memories because you cannot take me with you when you leave.
iv. the coast is clear. the taste of saltwater and bones filling with foam as we learn together the first sensation of nervous undressing at the foot of the bed. pale walls, no blinds drawn to protect us from the daylight, and anxious, unstable movements as the buttons unfasten, one by one. my eyes were darting, yours were steady; my lips separated with worry, yours were firmly pressed together with intent. you have learned the methods to breathe from within, to transform lonely vexation into undeniable prowess; i have not. to the victor go the spoils, to the victor go the spoils.
v. rust and sinking suns. the twilight rendezvous on the roof of our old apartment building in the city. do you recall the scent of hot pavement, ammonia, engine exhaust and of all the sweet perfumes of summer we used to mask the grit we gathered downtown? chests level with the horizon, nineteen stories up and dangling limbs over the precipice, dropping secrets to the streets below. you smiled and looked off in the distance as i mistook the mechanical whimper of the airplanes overhead for the whispers of the stars! we leaned against each other then, up in the concrete forest while dusk fell like a blanket around us. the world turned from golden amber to bruising purple, and back again to amber with the glowing of fluorescent street lights. even now, the fragrances of our last urban june cling to my clothing.
vi. dreams in fields. the seduction of a soldier takes time and planning and manipulation and many other empty promises of intimacy i cannot seem to keep. i no longer want to be the ghost of seduction, i want to be full and loaded with you and only you. i want to remove the bohemian blood, gypsy-like tendencies to roam and abandon. i want you to close your eyes, to reach infinity and crush my hips; be strong and tie me to you! the windows are open, i see the shadows and hear the pulsing of your marrow. who taught us the meaning behind the sensation we felt in respect to our eternity? you pressed your back against me and said "this is truth and our love begins with the metaphor of nations." borders broken in the secretive security of night, you become the stealthiest of invaders.
vii. messages from the west. comments and discoveries i make when near you seem absurd, childlike. when in your presence, new formations of older philosophies and little meditations transform into something heavier, more severe. "oh, the light, so bold that it blinds! my eyes fill up with whiteness and i cannot see!" you asked how the room of burning bulbs could thrust me into darkness. i said, the same way the power of your love causes me to stumble into solitude.