Lovers

My body is nothing but dust these days,

Dragged in from the outside,

From the ragged side-streets, the forgotten lanes,

It’s what happens to stardust after it decays,

And I know I drag this rot through the hallways,

That it sparkles and putrifies along the shaggy, soft carpets,

And I know that the dust I shake from my hair,

Runs like cockroaches, in and out of the cracks.

I see her standing in the hallway, a swan born of angels,

Alabaster shoulders; blue-china eyes,

A face with no purpose but to set the world right.

She tells me, I’m the light, don’t you know?

And I swear that I am the night.

 

I believe that I can change,

In a heart of heart that can keep nothing caged,

In a heart of hearts that crumbles, implodes, decays.

But I collect stamps during the days,

I love the edges,

The crinkled edges, that are full of sharp points,

And yet the stamps are so neatly square,

(or sometimes triangular, oval, round, rectangular – should you care)

Each one lines up with the other,

All in order, in orderly rows.

I can be that you see, for her, I can shake off the wildnerness,

I can lay down my battleaxe – for her I'd let go –

I believe I could leave behind the fight.

She says to me, head shaking, but don’t you see? I am the light.

And good, that’s what I tell her, yin and yang, I am the night.

 

Her shadow burns to touch me, leaves bruises, leaves scars behind,

It heals me as it hurts me, it shapes, it sculpts, my mind;

While my shadow is made from ice, it saps the life out of living things,

It withers them up inside,

Makes them join me in the dust

-As surely, she too must –

But her shadow is the stronger of the two of us.

Mine shrinks and puckers in the strength of her light.

She feeds me, so I drink from her,

I siphon off some purity, just enough to clean my face,

To be acceptable in her sight,

She touches my forehead with glowing hands; I know she is the light,

And I kiss her with my dark-breath lips, since I am, after all, the night.

 

She’s had her fill of darkness, of dust, of death,

She’s supped on all the sterility, the emptiness, the numbness she can take.

I can’t imagine a world where brightness can’t cancel the dark,

Where her kiss can’t steal my breath.

I can’t see why she doesn’t see,

Without her I will grow, I will grow like undead weeds,

I will grow not just fat, not just big,

I will rage across the landscape, blighting and withering,

Casting my gaze on all that is green and growing and writhing with energy,

Distended and distorted, I’ll rain down on it, I will

I won’t mean to, I am a power without conscience,

A life without will

Don’t do this to me, don’t let me be the blight.

Chalk and cheese, she tells me, smiling sadly, sinking into the night.

No! I bellow after her, her pinpoint-fading presence,

I’m nothing, only darkness, I need you to be my light.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work