cornelian

we’re flying through the town on a wire, feet dragging across the stone paths. you’re lying stomach down on a pond in autumn, green water soaking through your t-shirt, eyes wide open and lungs filling with something or other. it’s a midnight chorus, baby, can’t you hear the birds from down there? can’t you sing along for me?

this place isn’t so bad when you’re in it, i guess, especially when those red leaves are falling, healing up the dry ground, bringing the air to life once again. you’re laughing by the oak tree, eyes looking right through me, hair whipped into waves around your face. teal eyes. deeper than a sunrise. i could drink in that face forever, even though it’s not the one i thought it was. 

stay under the starlight in the park with me, watch as the stars fly overheard and crash into the mountains on the other side of the world. nothing troubles us here, the place where the crickets rumble, the room where all the light comes from the outside and feeds into our skin. you look cold. are you cold? you can go if you want but i won’t follow you inside. i feel closer to it all right out here.

this is a story about forever. the worst kind of forever, the kind where your memories get soaked away into a cloth that you keep near the sink. there’s some paintings on my skin and i don’t know how they got there. there’s a look in your eyes and i wish i knew how it got there. you smile like you know me. but the night never quite hits us and i really think it’s time to go back home.

so that’s what we do.

and oh how i remember you now, teal eyes, my wonderboy, the one who burns his tongue on his tea every time, the boy who can’t escape panic, the friend i lost in the afterparty. i welcome you back. i welcome me back.

the tattoos have meaning, the nights follow days, and my watch is working again. we readjust to the world like robins in the winter, red-breasted and soft with voices to match. you start eating cornflakes again and i get back to my poetry. we settle back into life; we leave the skeletons to rest. it’s worth all the gold in the world to breathe air into my lungs instead of glitter and the half-torn rags of an old story. 

we’ll watch a movie tonight. we’ll fall asleep on the sofa.

[Image: A chandelier. Source: Dani Relbyn. Used with permission.]