#publishme

We are who we should not be; the people of the night, awry and forlorn, trapped inside of something disguised. We are the people who should not be; with hands palm down on glass, battling atoms for cold and warmth. Jumping in the night to distant piano solos, brought to us on a breeze too hot for a January evening, we wrap ourselves within the sky’s blanket and make love with the light speckling stars, all to burn out.

Is it possible. To have the desire to love everyone. To give everyone everything. So you can be left with nothing.

When one is flying in a plane while the night is alive, looking out of the window does the darkness no justice. The most visible thing is the paint streak glare of scattered reading lights throughout the cabin, a mirror reflection of the seats in the row above. Merely lifting the cover allows the atmosphere’s cold air to radiate inside. It’s uncomfortable, seeing one's own sleep deprived reflection, featuring eyes sewn with red thread, and an almost visible smell emanating from a body that has sat in recycled air far too long. Staring makes one crazy, taking to calling the stewardess for help, yet, by the time she reaches the scene, all is forgotten, a glass of hot water is ordered instead. But one is tempted to look again, far enough from the pane to create a necessary distance, but close enough to see the same alarming figure, now accompanied by rising steam curling like fresh smoke. Moments pass, a stare down fills the time, the urge to call the stewardess back, with a bat, to bash in the creature on the wing floods the mind. But if one puts their cheek onto the mimicking thing, and focuses wandering eyes onto nothing, the reflection scatters like a flock of birds threatened by a thrown stone. The stars, they arrive, hung by the imagination, or by unimpressed God, and, if one focuses enough, they’ll notice a metal wing, and perhaps ponder the sensation of being out upon it, that high in the sky, hanging from a string like a star among flashes of electrical light, experiencing the cold of the wind, perfect skin turning black and falling off (for the temperature is past the requisite to preserve life), so with a ragged smile, comparable to that on a hermit crawling out of his cave and into the sun, one bears their teeth and one by one they drop, canine and molar alike, until only pink gums and charred lips remain on a featureless face.

“Whilst looking back i wished i took more photos of the gnats, of the flowers, and of the trees, but now i let my tired eyes rest upon the flesh, upon the bones, upon the myriad of human tactic. Today is the day i’ve began longing to be you, to appreciate the feeling of my bones creeping underneath your skin, to have sunken cheeks as you do. Though now i let my tired body feign on the bed, and that’s it.

we eat we drink we share the bed he scratches his head i get up to go to the restroom looking myself in the face there’s an unfamiliar freckle a new sunspot, skin cancer hair wrapped in coils smelling like burnt wood and nails each looking as ratchety as overused candle wicks we eat we drink i scratch my head he leaves the bed and he never comes back so i lay down, relieved, i am liberated free but still a nuisance like dandruff in the air afloat from someone combing someone’s hair though as soon as it’s spotted, it’s lost to the sun rays beaming in through a ramshackle window i eat, i drink, i lay in bed i get up to go to the restroom there are seven light bulbs above the mirror placed like gods to watch over me and my sins only three are glistering there had been four yesterday