#nanopomo

a quiet library sush.

Soul, but under snow.

Mutilated shades of mourning lows.

A dance, a fragile golden girl in death’s arms.

But this is after.

This is after and it feels full of sentiment.

Bottom lip greedy now for all you did to make the laughter.

This is after and I’m not someone borrowed, forgiveness hollowed.

Deep damnation to take another breath because I might remember how to be awake with a little more peace.

My soul answers the dizzy brink of echoes: the room full of darkness is closed for at least

a little while now.

After. I learn the worlds between bodies, you and me alone.

Chest full of honey-comb.

To find my days, one thing, one phrase, I’ll be the one that stays.

After, and my head no longer going against its law; of my heart.

My life, pulled apart

but with you.

Because my face is the best liar in me and not many people know it.

These days there’s something about the heaviness of a real laugh.

The way it pours, the way it erupts like it’s something broken.

You make me do it tonight, again and then again until I remember its sound, until I remember how to hold it in my chest.

I think of dawn and what capacity the roosters must feel with the morning’s light bathing their feathers.

Red glow.

How it must feel like the first time they’ve been touched, over and over again.

How much they praise the love of day.

How they must want to smile the only way they know how.

How much they want to say it.

This is the way I loved you.

The last 20 minutes of the sky and its letting go of the sun/ the weight of dog’s paws, how he sniffs out the sickness in me and tries to push it away with company/ the sound of rain at night through an open window/ how you watch me when you make the joke because my reaction is the only one that hits you right/ a hand tracing patterns on my back, on my wrist, the back of my neck/ the shiver of warmth against goosebumped skin/ an empty plane of sand and the sound of the sea’s gentle greeting and leaving, over and over again/ the way you always have the right words/ the way you use them/ the way you know how much they mean to me/ mum’s humming in the kitchen/ the smell of red peppers/ the way you call yourself home like you know it’s the only one I’ve ever known/ notes played on strings by someone I love/ your voice when you say “I knew you were going to say that”/ the small victories of light and love/ when something stays after I name it mine

It says, “She doesn’t want you in her life anymore, it’s why she didn’t even ask.”

And I keep my mouth shut on all of the “that sounds good” on all of the “I’m happy for you’s” because I’m scared that if I open it it won’t be my voice that comes out. 

I stop saying a lot of things in case it’s the dragon’s words that talk back.

It says, “You’ve faded away from them now, look how distant you are. It’s because you never know what to say anymore, it’s because you don’t say anything.” 

When I feel strong enough I push the dragon off, try to fight it like I see some of the others doing by my side. 

But I end up missing the fire from its stomach. At least, inside my head, it’s a voice I recognise. At least I’m not alone. 

I read words off my screen but I hear them as if they come from her lips. “It’s not just you, no one knows what’s going on mate, these are unprecedented times.”

The dragon makes me trace its scales with my fingertips. 

It says, as it curls its tail, as it curls its tales around my skin, “Things will never be like they were. People have moved on. You didn’t do enough to make anyone want to stay.” 

I nod. Close my eyes when it sighs warm air over my face. When I wake up, I shake the wings off me. I know the dragon is wrong but the fear presses me low enough to look into its eyes. It’s alive, so am I. Who else will hold me back if it’s gone? Who else will have that much care? 

I turn up at her empty window, say,  “My heart is unsettled. I didn’t think you were gonna live out a future with me but you didn’t ask. Don’t you know how much that hurts? I’m sorry I’m so distant but that was the last heartstring you see, nothing is holding on to you anymore. I’m all loose nerve endings. I wish I’d never got so attached.” 

The dragon knows it’s losing me, looks sad when it says, “She can’t hear you, she’ll never be able to listen.” 

I nod, kiss the length of its snout before it flies away,

I say, “I think I’m going to find someone that can.”