Come to me, dear, and we’ll collapse, crippled by the weight of the words that knocked the chips from our shoulders. And sit with me, here, under the cedar blocks of classrooms and hallways. We’ll make splinters out of sticks and sweep our hands across the grass. Wave the sun from our faces. Crumple paper in our fists. Then walk with me, out into the swelter of noise and movement, across the roadways, forward. Let me follow you from the stairwells to the platforms, from the concrete to the cars, your car, and, teasing, usher me inside.

And homeward, racing, the oil spill of buildings and clouds, speckled with rainbows, brackish and dense, flowing past our windows. So much talk of the dope of a new spring that we could barely open our mouths without smiling. Or utter anything at all, laughing as we were. Or skate from your side as I stumbled away, giddy for the future, longing for some story that I would one day watch you write.

Come to me, please, and we’ll sink under the swell of things unspoken, and promised, and laced with intent. And lay with me, here, under the shadow puppets of leaves and clouds. We’ll make mountains out of mornings, dull from the nights that drag on for days. Break our lovers into stones and branches. Crumple stories in our fists. Then crawl to me, over the ashes and scorch marks, across the graves of the fallen psalms. Let me lead you to the stairwells, to the oil spills, to the spikes.

And downward, creeping, unlaced and ajar, moving, breathing, clawing at my skin. So much silence that I can barely listen for your form as it shifts above me. Or judge the force that splits that silence into sound. The disintegration of all things. The violent, red thrashing of your wounded mouth. The darkness that spills from your eyes.

Come to me, now, abducted, flushing pink and skinless wet. Yielding and fragile and exposed. In a hushed clearing, beneath the trees, in the viper spit of rain, in the soil, stretched flat, thin, spilling out into the damp cavities of the earth.

And wait.


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