apocalypse

just a photograph of me standing by the ocean
just your hands around the neck of a bottle
tight like kid-love
and the smears of grease on the page that still feels sticky in my hands-

i hear the song playing through the open window...
thinking of japan
that slow, rough voice making sense of a thousand cluttered days

have i seen that orange slice before?
or is this video the same one that's constantly playing
in the cinema of my mind.

i feel like we shouldn't be alone together because when we are i start talking
and things come out that i'll probably
want to take back.
it shouldn't feel so natural.
but it is.
maybe she's right...
maybe we're half in love with everyone we meet and maybe that's just how we've always been
and maybe it doesn't mean anything.

their anything.
our anything means something to me.

i'm sorry this always ends up feeling like a fever dream.
i used to have structured thoughts
patterned emotion
but everything is a stream of consciousness these days
a stream constantly flowing down to an ocean full of my thoughts, and even now i see the little swimmers getting stuck on the baggage i dropped without opening it.
don't worry about them.
the current of my love for you
will clear the water soon.

if this was a movie
we would've been in love by now
but i'd never let you, hand around my neck like it's as breakable as the bottle, and even though you're too big for me, my spirit is casting a shadow over you
that you'll never outrun.
you don't fall in love with your ghost.
you just let it follow you around
day after day
a face in every dream
even though you said you don't.

i remember standing in the desert in new mexico
alone
and i remember the way the world looked when it fell away from my feet over the edge that i couldn't see, as hot and formless as an ocean painted persimmon gold, and i remember how every time the same raven would circle over my head it'd remind me of the way you'd find me
even if this life started over.
even if it was dark, and there was no way to speak, even if we were cold and lost, even if the whole world stood up between you and me...
there'd be a day where you knocked on my door
and found a way to choke out the words
that held my name.

people always ask if i'm in love but at this point
i eat too much of it to be in it.
and i wish it was easier to kiss you
than it is for me to do all these other things i do
with my eyes closed.

because you know i'm untouchable.
not in the sense that you couldn't have me
but when you did
your fingertips, stone and steady,
would bruise this translucent skin that only knows how to leave.

and you would hate me.

i don't want to do the apocalypse over, though i survived the first three times,
but i'd rather do that again
than forget you.

x