dreaming of fidelity


prelude

“i don’t care how wrong you were about yourself
and you don’t need to say how much i mean to you
for you can touch the bottom of the ocean
without being underwater,

i don’t wonder if you ever loved anyone else
and you don’t need to tell me how beautiful i am
for you can taste the morsels of death
floating in your blood,

i don’t aim to make you a part of me forever
and you don’t need to show me what you’re made of
because all i ask is that you
lift your eyes a moment
just to let me know you still exist

and you can
lay your head on the gravel
and you can
glaze your skin in sugar
and you can make anything seem lonely
but the only thing that matters to me
is you

and you can writhe on the ground in silence,
every inch of your veins pulsing with the
mental turbulence
of striving to be perfect,
and you can suffer every sentiment i utter
as the tears flush out your
underlying stains,
and you can tell me however many times you want
how much you wish your heart
would refuse to ever beat again,
so long as
i can still feel every breath you take...”


where fealty once lay
the mattress still reeks of your scent
bottleneck perfume dashed along your secret niche
of effluence

and i pulsed as the hairs on my neck bristled against your fingers
slowly dying in the moment, patient in the ache of wanting
i drifted upward, in a dream, to your mouth
and held you silent for yet
another eternity
your breath swirled in mine, the slightest hint of
saliva dangling from your lips
and mine, the red rose thorned with indecision

for whom shall a jaunty blade entice
whence there blossom nary a maiden?

once upon a time there was hope in faith, though anything
that was everything has succumbed to the art of
painted icons on the psyche
symbols of a tragic heart, deft in debauchery
and cleft with dubiety

my blood still flows from your final duel
with fate, seeping the froth of treachery from
your spinal chasm
a mighty monolith of cherished throes
and forsaken pleasures

where frailty once play
in the gardens by your secret meadow
vulnerability dressed by shades of
summer love

showered red with fading sun, the warmth of
dawn disappears o’er the horizon, my heart sets
in casual moonglow with the angst
ebbing from demigods, for cupids to take aim
their indiscretions in the face of my silent
suffocation

for somewhere
in the midst of
wayward dreams, i still
breathe
the air inside you




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