A banana bakes in the sunlight screaming through the West-side window. The sun dances in its own heat and teases me for joy. She lures me outside into the jaws of a sharp wind and laughs as I shudder. I return to sit behind glass.
From here I watch someone else hear your smile and feel your laugh.
There is a longing to be seen, to be included because I know that all your jokes are inside jokes – a comedy club one cannot choose to enter. For this, a foundation built on mutual friends and countless hours over three years is eclipsed by distance; those friends are gone and those years fade.
We laughed because you were laughing. It is mirrored in all waters, all glasses; every crystal captures the eruption that is your heart into joy. But now your skin tightens and your sense panics because, like always, my gaze drifts: my attention mocks you with my desire on him. They are traps, those eyes grey like thunder, but I do not want to escape, so I grin and melt that I may be carried in the tank of his car.
His seductive smirk, his innocent cheeks: a child born into sin but precious with the innocence that can only be feigned with the knowledge we have taken. How sweet: a soft pout, a rosy glow, a voice I drink like trickling water, just a baby born with a fool’s wisdom.
That music wraps you tightly; it sticks to your shoes like mud in the cracks - songs you let conduct your life. You’d rather live in those songs than open your own eyes. The shades stay drawn and your notes read sadly. You live in twisted joy found in seeping hearts, bitter brown ice, and vain photos, false faces.
Do you love her because you feel safe to hate her? She won’t notice with your touch so gentle, seemingly timid but deliberately so. I dare not call her a fool for in her I am reflected. I stare at me in her but in her eyes I see mine now pierced by a new light in the center that does not reach through hers. I would show her from where it comes and to where it leads but she doesn’t know we are connected and he won’t tell her.
She holds the porcelain doll cold on her skin, smooth on her fingers, delicate on her hands. To the child it is treasure, the love to call one’s own, to carry with you always. But it will fall and it will shatter - hallow and sharp, you will bleed.
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