POETRY

two girls sat together, a small head bobbed with wavy brown hair, laying against the tall broad shoulders of it’s love.
a comforting booth, a cocoon for them both to share.
a chrysalis of their love
a yearning, actualized.
their train car lost, in a pocket of space and time, a loving permanence and stagnation.
a space inbetween worlds. between where they were and where they have yet to be.
a space where naught exists but the present.
a space, where they can be okay.

a muffin sat on a tray, normally gone uneaten, shared in spite of their insecurities.
the clunking of machine parts beneath their feet, a hypnotic dance.
only tactile, beneath the music they share from one pair of shitty dollar store earbuds.
phones hidden deep in their bags, a remnant of a real world they do not need inside the time capsule.
the cold moon outside their glossy windows, a foreign body, if even real.
nothing feels real, in this moment, except each other.

they embrace.
they know that soon enough, in hours, or a day, they will be thrust back into the sun.
they know the world ahead is not made for girls like them.

and they know they do not care.

they know no matter the evils of the reality they are headed towards, no matter how good it feels to be free of it in its entirety
they know no matter all, that they will find a space like this, in eternal form, in each others arms.
they know, that they will be free.

someday, together.

it’s dark out. i hear the rain pouring down from outside the car. pitter patting, growing faster and heavier by the minute. our car crashes into a torrent of water and it sprays over us. whhhp whhhp, whhhp, whhhp, the wipers drag loudy. i fiddle in my lap with something. the 3ds, dark blue and small, loaded in with super mario 3d land cartridge. i just lost, so i’m taking a break. i peer through the valley between driver and passenger and see in front of us. the streetlights are out, whether by outage or breaking i have no clue. normal safeguards removed, we follow by light of our fellow drivers, bursting with astigmatic glow through my eyes.

the highway takes a millenia. a hundred buildings with blinding neon stars welcoming their business pass by my peripherie. i think about the woman in the front. kindly and imposing, her demeanor demanded care, at least to me. i get to hear her mutter obscenities under her voice at every ‘asshole’ who cuts in front of us. it makes my heart flutter.

theres a loud thump from outside and my nintendo’s knocked from my hands onto the floor mat in front of my seat. at least it was closed. my glow in the dark kandi chain on it glows nicely from there, and i get too distracted marvelling at that to remember to pick it up.

she angrily grunts something about the tire and pulls over. she gets out and i feel bad that all the water’s drenching her so i try to leave the car and maybe hand her my jacket but she stares me deep in the eyes as i open it and tells me loudly and firmly

“Sit down, and stay.”

so i sit. i make my ass as clung to the seat as i possibly can. i hear a lot of whirring and the car props itself up suddenly and it all worries me a lot but im nothing if not good. after what feels like an eternity she’s back inside, startling me with the sound of the door opening.

she smiles, clearly worn and exhausted from the exertion of whatever she wouldn’t let me help with. “good girl”

and i smile too. she laughs at me being so happy to see her, i think. her laugh is beautiful. hearty and unbridled, it makes me wanna tell jokes to hear it all the time. but she’s picky with her humour so i have to be careful. or just act like a dog, she seems to like that, at first glance. i sit still and firm in my seat, and keep watch over the road, marvelling at all the little starbursts we chase past. i almost don’t feel the time at all. its.. a welcome change.

the rain never stops blasting our windshield and drowning the asphalt, but i’m so in tune with the fast rhythmic beat of it that i lose it as the concept of ‘rain’ entirely, instead using it to mash tunes together with in my head, and to play races between the little droplets on my window. i feel her look over to me looking over the skyline, or rather the lack of it this late, and smile so she knows i know.

when the car stops, im quite sad at its stealing of my tune, and of my nostalgia, and of my forlonging. i frown for what i think is the first time all day. she gets out of the car first, shutting down the beast’s growling so the rain is all thats left. she appears at mine so fast it feels supernatural. she looks down at me, and i up at her. she smiles again, toothily. and reaches down to unbuckle my seatbelt. she outstretches her hand, as if asking a dog to shake. i put my hand in hers, and she grips it so tight it hurts. but it hurts lovingly, hurts with safety.

i manage to speak for the first time in our travel “i wish i could go on drives like this all the time.”

her voice returns so quick it must have been expected. its sweet like honey and dry like wood, it’s beautiful. “we could go on one every night, darling.” she says.

she pulls me up the concrete front steps to her home. they hurt my paws. “what do you mean?” i wished i could go on these drives every night, longed for something like her to take me on these therapeutic trips. it feels like dreaming to be an astronaut, dreaming for that. flying through abyssal space included. her fairy tales are so captivating.

“don’t worry about it, kid. you’ll see”

she opens the door, drags me through-

and i see it.

awoken on sheets of linen, i feel her before i feel myself.
she is the first warm breeze of air into my lungs, the rays of sun through the glass.
the roof overhead granting shelter, and the soft fur cradling my feet.

donning my holy vestes, and my colourful beads of prayer.
to the lighthouse i go, carried by the grace of her holy day
pushed to where all the heavens can watch me kneel and pray.

on a mat adorned with her sigil. hand clasped in hand i softly sing,

o beacon, holy beacon, sweet angel in the sky
won’t you come down, and share with us your light?
we await below venorated steeples, to hear you and your plight.
to feel your being and all it’s warmth, to hold through the dark of your night.

i sit and repeat, for hour on hour.
until i feel the warmth begin to sour.
and as the scriptures say, at the end of this day,
she descends in a ring of light, brought by wings of fae.

with eyes seeping ichor black, and tears made of venom, light emenates from its halo, fuel for the fire.
reached out into an embrace, i grab her swollen wings betwixt my pious mortal hands, upon which i clench with the love of a whole.
and the tar dripping into the vestments
slowly turns to flowers.

our beloved angel, our hallowed beacon, gone to watch from afar once more while i leave it with the hopes, that it will remember our love assured.

in the backs of my eyes, light does not reach.
black and white, monochrome stars, inky null and blinding full.
others dream, and my thoughtlessness seeks.

though i cannot see, and though i cannot breathe
in every moment my eyes breach free-
i dream.

not for grandeur, not for fillment,
i dream of nothing but hope.
for days where i could, for the days i would dream.

sitting in the back seat. squalid radio turned to rage.
looking at her shoulder’s locks, dreaming of the cage.
taken to my first bar, shown my first rave
not forgotten, not forsaken, the only love i will take to my grave.

cigarettes and mud, alleys and grunge
all i wanted was saving.
gone so far, seeded so deep,
until it whittled into camaraderie.

when the shows over, she’d take me home and leave me in her bed.
that night i would be cherished, and that morning i’d be fed.
i see their faces in my dreams, as every possibility, every tangle, every thread, every filament held together.

like a bastion of memory, creating false to fill the empty.
to grant hope to a greyscale null.

you sit atop a throne of gold, marked with the imprint of a millennia of worship.
your putrid chapel surrounds you, a glorious monument to all your betrayals, a building made of trees and rope, spiritually stained with the effervescent blood of those who once came to build.
your starving followers kneel at your altar, mumbling impotent prayers, awash with a uselessness only you can relinquish from them.
their toes curl inwards, their skin sags, their sharp ribs heave with a defiant life when they take their shallow breaths.
no emotion can be held for these creatures. they are broken disciples, minds ever-closed to only think of one thing: you. a beam of morning sunlight, an orange glow of the divine, lines up perfectly with the stained window. showering your followers in a gifted presence.
all thanks to your will.

the gold around you disappear. the arms of your throne replaced with a rotten structure of tibias and fibulas, chipped bones and unnaturally sticking sinew construct that which props you up.
fitting.

remove the gods you have killed from your scripture, until only you remain.
the filthy peons need never know any option besides you.
they decided this life, they could fall back into the wild woods and feast on whatever decadence they desire, but you are the only light, the only guidance they could ever know.
you are not like them, but you did a good job making yourself seem like something close.
their malnourished corpses walking, are beautiful in that they service you, the only one worth beautifying. you will feast on the holy blood dripping from their crying eyes and they will know love.
the love you taught them to recognize.
the love you taught them to give to each other.
until the only guidance they have is one who despises their being.

oh how well you tricked them. truly your malice is of godly proportions. you've earned this chapel of filth.
and you will have earned its burning as well.
the gold will melt around you, the bones will seep into glue.
your might will burn into one last furious light, and you will face the first regret of your malignant existence.
when their rotten hands grasp at you for light, and you are dragged down into the voidful earth alongside them.
until you are nothing but one of them.
a faceless, nameless, nothing husk.