The hurt you carve and grating prayers are
Only equal to the love you have
And that love builds palaces of faith.
You breathe minarettes; we bleed spires.
We reach up to tall places, fingers crooked,
Breaking,
And press against rooftops
And then against cold floors.
Clear water, dappled, throwing colours, and incense
Twists pale and soft. Light moves like candles.
-
Holy books say the same words in different tongues.
We sing the same songs, shir ashalom,
Hallelujah, and
We reach up to tall places.
In the end, all that Dean comes down to is a scuff of dark footprints on laboratory linoleum. Boot treads cutting lines in the goo that Dick Roman left, the faintly scratched texture of the slime where the cuff of jeans dragged. Castiel doesn’t leave anything.
For the longest time, Sam simply doesn’t know what to do.
Heliotrope
Little fingers
That push and prod and concern
Themselves with the love affair of beetles—
Where they sleep, how they love—
And blow whistling kisses.
.
Little fingers,
Ghostly smears on mud-flecked glass,
Squash of hands, of faces, like breath never fading
and you’ll be
neverending.
.
Baby fingers,
That claw and clutch and take,
Bitten nails drifting over the curl of my lip
Until I tell you again, and so
I tell you again.
.
I would give you everything
the tinderbox, matchlight dancing cold in your eyes
bronchiole withering, crumpled.
aorta
take it all.
.
Ragged fingers.
Loose-leaf, cracked spine, cracked
knuckles. Cypress cones stand attentive,
cut scars in windowsills. I’ll tuck the blankets tight,
smooth away shadows, brave thumbs
.
and we are neverending.
For Kat’s birthday!
A Sabriel ficlet for Kat’s eighteenth birthday
THE SNOT TO MY PESTILENCE
I LOVE YOUUUU
Chronos
three little yellow birds
a ticking clock
and a layer of dust on a fine lady’s bureau.
birds fly south, wings a roar like heartbeats and the words we never say,
landing as rainfall and dark dirt.
children run their fingers through, curl their toes, forget sunhats.
sunset. sunrise.
the afternoon is mildly overcast. wear a scarf.
one tall wineglass, red pooling viscous, infinite, at the bottom
and staining sweetly at the rim, the mouth. my mouth was softer.
rock candy, too. and milliseconds.
You’re bobbled and bitty, old worn glove,
bone buttons comfortably shiny,
uncomfortably loose.
Either my master seamstress missed a stitch, two stitches, three,
in her masterpiece, or the space is unravelling between you and me.
We found each other, that very first time,
in metallic sparks and the hiss of prayer,
fingerpaint still coppery and bitter
in the whorls of his hands –
or warpaint. I have a hard time
remembering.
Absent father, grant me peace of mind and
peace of body where it curled warm and tight with his,
toes once tucked into the arch of his foot, calescent.
These days even the blankets are cold.
There are women with green eyes and women with freckles and
the clinging traces of a man they’ve never met is somewhere
beneath the crisp starched cotton suits as they help me into
my own. Claustrophobic throat, panic of limbs, and I
shift and twist and fight and judder and
scream but nobody comes.
Once I was sunset
and now I am
dust.
The walls are stronger than I am and
that has never happened before.
I punch holes. I break knuckles.
They give me
more pills.
Have never moved mountains. Carved streams; carried letters.
The vessel was fever-shiny, new as chrysalids,
blue tie and button-down shirt.
Don’t know where those are now.
Don’t know.
Hands and feet and the crest of skin between fingers,
easily torn. I could change
once.
Lion, lover, empress orchid. Skin is skin –
it doesn’t matter away from the stretch and twine
of taut brown bodies, seeking, starving,
insinuating press of lips and teeth.
Skin is skin is skin is skin. What if I
took it all off
but then
more pills.
The words ‘I’m sorry’ fade thin and fragile in my mouth,
no matter what language they’re said in.
I’d like to have taught him French; it’s my
favourite.
Was my favourite.
Favourite.
blinking bleary
blurry
blots
I’m sorry
the carpet here is yellow.
the ceiling here is white
more pills
please
The Place Where I Grew Up
I
The place where I grew up
was not on the sharp-stoned shore in Aldeborough,
brightly-painted houses behind me dripping grey
as the rain comes in close.
was not the throbbing Chinese market-place,
claustrophobically coloured and dense with noise.
Bustling, beating, breathing Yashou, crackling meat.
New suits, blue suits, oriental and not-for-you suits.
The fat-limbed children kicking up red dust on blue silk,
dragons twisting gold thread thick.
was not the bottom of fairy-lit gardens, lily pads nor ponds because
time passed and shadows stretch at dusk
and I felt that those places
were not.
II
The place I grew up
was my own head, sweet and hopeless.
A head never resting on strangers’ pillows long enough to leave a dent.
Windows look the same; small, set, square.
The fox-dens, forest-glens, dead-ends
outside – they change from place to place but I couldn’t tell you how.
Took nothing more with me than a battered, loved rabbit
with the ears chewed up that they swore I’d love to death, and you. I lived for
plane food, train food, your-suitcase-in-the-way food.
Terminal 16 Tesco’s. I sit up top, legs swinging like a paper doll
until The Parents get back for the tea party. No time to play.
Home food, alone food, I’m-sorry-you’ve-nowhere-to-go food.
If I run away I could stay here a little longer.
I could leave a mark.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Prelude To Buttsex
okay I fucked up a little with the timing so I had to speed it up and it sounds a little like it’s veering towards Alvin and the Chipmunks, but there you go
I wrote this for mycroftsmindbakery, who asked me to write the homoerotic confession of love between Dean and Castiel in song formation
here you go, Alice
-
Dean’s part / Castiel’s part
I’m sorry but listen to me Cas
you pay attention or I swear I’ll kick your ass
I just wanna say uh you’re pretty cool you know
come on don’t make me say it
I’m sorry I don’t think I comprehend
I think the phone is breaking up on your end
is there a situation I could mend
I’ll do anything for you
alright here’s what I’m trying to say
no homo man, course I’m not gay
but if I were to ever swing that way
you’d be the first one for me
but I don’t get it, we’re not “swinging”
is there a reason you keep ringing
or a reason why we’re singing
Dean are you drunk again
jesus christ Cas can you just shut up
the pizzaman didn’t teach you what comes first
I didn’t know I even had feelings; this hurts
but I think I love you
Cas? Hello? Cas? Hellooo?
I’m there now
10 playsLifetimes
The first lifetime doesn’t last forever
like we wanted it to. You say my name
as you fade, and then his. Then the ether.
You die as brothers; freckled; tall; the same.
.
You come back browner, leaner, soft. I wait –
humans age slowly – for the chub to smooth,
the curves to come. After that, you’re late,
born new, pink and mewling. Your eyes are blue.
.
In some lifetimes, we fall in love afresh.
In others, we don’t. I only watch then:
domesticity someone else’s mess
now. You age and die, once, twice, then again
.
and I, in my tie and my ragged coat,
the etch in my brow, refuse to let go.
