In the earlier days it had been a hint of generic deodorant, gentle residues left upon folds of fabric flicked past my cheek. I would find myself hunching in that unceremoniously ever-same isle in Walmart, sneaking sniffs between passers-by to minimize my apparent creep lvl.5, hunting for your specific variety of specific brand. By the time I had finally figured it out, the association of that particular sense with particular memory was already fading, if not gone.
I am not nostalgic; the replacement was the true worthwhile bargain. An upgrade to your natural you, mingled with a hint of myself, on myself, as my free left wrist habitually rose to cover a yawn at the wheel? It was you.
It was you.
More so than the previously mentioned auditory trigger, this olfactory equivalent packs the real punch that it was you. Last evening I could have drowned in my own hand and arm in you.
Coyly invite me to bed again. I will not decline or deny with wordless silence a second time. Neither will I bring it to your attention for fear that you will ruthlessly take even this away, just like you undid those kisses. I will not forget. Even if my consciousness drifts and my memory of dream and reality mingle in half-out confusion, my impressionable skin does not forget.
My thumb fits over your newest badge under my collar bone.
dot my i's with eyebrow pencils close my eyelids hide my eyes I'll be idle in my ideals think of nothing else but I I I and I
Only one thought will ever be associated with this song. On repeat.
There is a rare one-to-one correlation going on here. See me listening to this and you'll know for a fact that I'm consciously submerging myself in all associations of you.
It's twistedly funny that you think I will one day forget.
No matter what.
These in-between days crawl by increasingly slower each time.
And in thick words we breathe, are tied, bound to thin-pressed legalities and responsibilities to rope twine together, roll mauve and blind green, drinking in premature gestures of sun and spring. Sung in high praise for the price of choice, price of freedom, price of picking the path of lukewarm resistance with no cost-reducing enzyme or ATP coupling.
Again this looks like a year with no spring. I coil in repulsed anticipation for the first hint of summer threatening to gorge down even this, this, relatively-tame albeit month-too-early, so-called spring. Like the onrush of another side-along exponential experience, though I don't too-much-mind that one at all. I anticipate.
This future.
Reveling in its endless possibilities, and reconsidering again what I once dismissed as impractical impossibilities. Drop an idea in my lap, and then totally leave. That is the way to turn a blind-due-to-stubborn me around. No bullheaded nagging insistence will intrigue or work magic like that. That was the newness. That was his secret.
Like the joy that would be felt by blind fingertips aimlessly grating scraping peeling along unforgiving mortar grooves of an immeasurable brick wall, enduring exasperation and fear in deep self-conviction and stubborn refusal-to-be-proven-wrong, only to delve for a tapestry-disguised tunnel only hinted to exist in slick slimey hearsay...if even a thread from the fraying edge of that heavy textile was felt in place of farther grainy cement; if even the first hint of spring-breathed flowing air breezes hope through barrier of hollow to dust to cloth to wall to the blind, blind you, in the z axis, out relative to this white space.
He merely sways with the (to him, uncertain) wind, still shied away. Still shimmering, shimmering, ablaze inside. Haloed in the evening sun.
We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living
And since that first breath...we’ll need grace that we’ve never given
I've been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts
And it's not only when these eyes are closed
These lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach,
But they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
And my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north,
Stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better
But it won’t, at least I don’t believe it will...
So I've built a wooden heart inside this iron ship,
To sail these blood red seas and find your coast.
Don’t let these waves wash away your hopes
This war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors
Pulling fist fulls of rotten wood from my heart, I'll still believe in saviors
Because we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board
Washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
So come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
Come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember
I am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it
But we’re making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts
We all have the same holes in our hearts...
Everything falls apart at the exact same time
That it all comes together perfectly for the next step
But my fear is this prison...that I keep locked below the main deck
I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden
And my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right
But they’re heavy and I’m awkward...always running out of fight
So I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship
Hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks
Because I am all made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
Lost and found like you and me all scattered out on the seas
So come on let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
Come on and sew us together, we're just some tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember
My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin, come on rock me to sea
If we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together
And not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep
All these machines will rust I promise, but we'll still be electric
Shocking each other back to life
Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected
Our bones grown together in time
Our hands entwined, my fingers in your veins connected
Our spines grown stronger inside
Because I know our church is all made of shipwrecks
From every hull these rocks have claimed
But we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through this change
So come on let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
Come on and sew us together, we're just tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember
-
The more I let this stew, the more this is turning me into an absolute emotional wreck. I thought I could draw to this at first. I'm just overwhelmed at this point, for now. In need of a slight break.
