reigningdream

unicornology:

(i know i’ve posted this before, but it’s just that amazing.)

Close your eyes. A lover is standing too close
to focus on. Leave me blurry and fall toward me
with your entire body. Lie under the covers, pretending
to sleep, while I’m in the other room. Imagine
my legs crossed, my hair combed, the shine of my boots
in the slatted light. I’m thinking My plant, his chair,
the ashtray that we bought together. I’m thinking This is where
we live. When we were little we made houses out of
cardboard boxes. We can do anything. It’s not because
our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we
struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring
your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making
those long noodles you love so much. My dragonfly,
my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing
for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw,
and this is the map of my heart, the landscape
after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is
a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me
tight, it’s getting cold. We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it. The lawn drowned, the sky on fire,
the gold light falling backward through the glass
of every room. I’ll give you my heart to make a place
for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger.
Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars
for you? That I would take you there? The splash
of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube? We’ve read
the back of the book, we know what’s going to happen.
The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left
broken in the brown dirt. And then it’s gone.
Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye
Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all
in Heaven. But there’s a litany of dreams that happens
somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling
on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we
transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands
and record stores. Moonlight making crosses
on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.
We have been very brave, we have wanted to know
the worst, wanted the curtain to be lifted from our eyes.
This dream going on with all of us in it. Penciling in
the bighearted slob. Penciling in his outstretched arms.
Our father who art in Heaven. Our father who art buried
in the yard. Someone is digging your grave right now.
Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean, he said,
so think of the wind, so happy, so warm. It’s a fairy tale,
the story underneath the story, sliding down the polished
halls, lightning here and gone. We make these
ridiculous idols so we can to what’s behind them,
but what happens after we get up the ladder?
Do we simply stare at what’s horrible and forgive it?
Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are
the monsters we put in the box to test our strength
against. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here’s
the desire to put it inside us, and then the question
behind every question: What happens next?
The way you slam your body into mine reminds me
I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling,
and they’re only a few steps behind you, finding
the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren’t
stitched up quite right, the place they could almost
slip right into through if the skin wasn’t trying to
keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side
of the theater where the curtain keeps rising.
I crawled out the window and ran into the woods.
I had to make up all the words myself. The way
they taste, the way they sound in the air. I passed
through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled
around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made
this place for you. A place for to love me.
If this isn’t a kingdom then I don’t know what is.
So how would you catalog it? Dawn in the fields?
Snow and dirty rain? Light brought in in buckets?
I was trying to describe the kingdom, but the letters
kept smudging as I wrote them: the hunter’s heart,
the hunter’s mouth, the trees and the trees and the
space between the trees, swimming in gold. The words
frozen. The creatures frozen. The plum sauce
leaking out of the bag. Explaining will get us nowhere.
I was away, I don’t know where, lying on the floor,
pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you
but the victory is that I could not stomach it. We have
swallowed him up, they said. It’s beautiful. It really is.
I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room
where everyone finally gets what they want.
You said Tell me about your books, your visions made
of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is
the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you
there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar
cube… We were in the gold room where everyone
finally gets what they want, so I said What do you
want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am
leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome
burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,
my silent night, just mash your lips against me.
We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

You fucked me last night, or at least you tried to…
just prior to that thinning sound 
of helicopter spinning overhead like cicada tied by thread nailed hard into heavy earth
and the monkey alarm 
                                   clock.

I broke into your house while you were away — to leave a letter,
but your bald-headed, couch-crasher walked in on me asleep upon your floor… I’m not sure why the floor… nor the sleep for that matter; there were two beds and one couch pushed up against all walls false- wood paneling. Perhaps the short bed was too short and the larger bed had that tall clear plastic bag of feminine articles staking citronella claim… and well, I respect stakes

as well as flames and claims

its all here for a reason, but I digress…

The couch was untouchable and I’m in your room without my pen and you’ve no paper to be seen, baldy likes talking at me and I’m wringing the corners of my dress nervous because I hear a car outdoors and I had wanted to flee prior to you’re arriving. I’m trespassing this creaky house of swinging-open doors, I slip into the restroom which now stands in place of the true 

entrance to your room and try to pry a sink-top window
for escape — there is none, so I find myself 

showering my rationale further into the oblivion we have managed we — one tiny towel 

and my clothing vanished and 

the door is swinging itself open as you walk in

fat hairy and disgustingly fucked-up on god 

only knows with your most obtusely talented roommate’s

Eye glowing red with a crazed-telepathic today is crazy day smile, “well, look what the cat…”

In a way which makes me feel beautiful despite my lack 
of proper dress, hair or makeup. “yep, mine is turning quite odd“ — I flare-sanguinely expecting a death-fit from either direction. His swollen gait squeezes past my awkward pigeon-toed hands squeezing towel together stance; left-elbow propping the door which had been hinged to the right of me — dripping, to visit a blonde female-midget whom sleeps in a cave of dark futon looking cushions stack-piled in the corner of this   

 restroom. He lovingly looks into her and I begin 

to understand this place

Just a little bit more —

“i thought you were a drinker”

“none of your doors work” the latch won’t catch

I project a bit too loud, captivated by the ugly-majesty of the ocurrent display of
affection and expecting you are still, standing, at the first entry, “Don’t stare”

You breathe upon my right shoulder, behind me; I look to you like a child

Being smacked for reaching a warm cookie and you kiss me 

to the floor…

      ”what are you doing?”

“Remember…” and then you slip into some Asiatic tongue and the flood comes imaged-blur beyond recognitionsound;

we are digging through the layers of cut-off shorts and rubber-bands sandwiched between blankets and sheets, throwing them upon bicycles leaned up against the wall… 

         and then 

That monkey alarm and the giant cicada.