Monday, July 9, 2012

old songs, new blood

What this city does to me.  It's open like a breath of cool air, and as tight as quarters can get, everyone wants to keep their space marked, because there isn't space, and there's a sense that it's all about to run out at the very last minute, and we're close to the very last minute.  This ground can hold a lot of blood, though, and everyone knows it, and hardly anyone talks about it.  But it can hold a lot more blood still. I don't want to see all the ghosts that are here, and it's hard to see them for the sun and the traffic and the endless stream of trucks carting around the things people need for food and shelter.  Outside of the comforts, then, there are ghosts, ones I don't want to see, especially the ones I've already dealt with a long time ago.
But I'm flying through traffic with leather on my back and Yewa on my license plate, and all it takes is one song to send the ghosts flying, they come flying, you come flying, looking like you did when there were fireworks in your veins, flowers in your hair, and lava coming from out of the mouth below your waist, and I start to wonder what happened to you, and even though I don't really know, I also know that you probably don't deserve it.
And it sounds petty to think that I got healed by someone who didn't look anything like you, someone I didn't expect, but it ended the same, there were these things, these things in a path that make up a life that got in the way, so when she didn't want it to end, she didn't do anything to stop it.  I stop nothing that leaves, don't stand in the way, and don't try to bring it back, but my dogteeth rip at it and try to keep it close, but only long after the balloon has already flown up, after the string has already broken.
I can't do these things, the same kinds of repetition that once made up a song that I couldn't forget.  Now I don't mind if I forget the song, but there are some days I just don't, and this is one of the days that I don't forget, I just don't.
I wish I could tell you all the stories that are written in the dirt under my nails, and in their cracks, and I wish I could hear all the things that happened to you between then and now.  But there are too many other oceans calling, and too many songs that I haven't heard yet, and they come whether or not I let go of the strings, and I'm not missing out on anything.  So I guess I need you, buried in my chest like the bones of a bird who's not afraid of her own blood, but sometimes runs from her own shadow.  And maybe you need me, because I was born to be your shadow, and we deserve to be haunted by each other for the furious ways that we loved each other.  

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