between science and superstition, there were questions and desperations; a forecast of better days, a pledge for inevitable ones.
you spoke highly of the man in the moon. lowering your voice whenever his name slipped from your tongue. you would slow your step on our way back home from school just to get more glimpse of it's phosphorous glow. i get jealous when you do that. throwing my fist while i reel into the midnight street. sulking on the trenches when your youthful grin came into the frame. stop acting like a child. you had lowered your knees to sit beside me. it was a burgeoning August, the scent of summer swarming under our fingertips in ways that thaw every frozen heart.
you were a believer, i was dubious at best. it's not like i didn't try. i gave all my youth delving into the redwood forests, trying to find the pieces of Enceladus you kept rattling about. who the fuck foraged a million acres worth of land for a chunk of broken satellite? my logic cannot compete with your faith so here i am, throwing pebbles on a pond of shredded innocence. so young and already lost so much.
oh well, when did this even turn into a winning matter? when it comes to you, i speak only of resignation. i speak of obedience and pure devotion. you drag me out of that haunted house after all. you spent months and months trying to make the blood stop. you took what would trigger disgust and cherish it like i was a returning warrior. rogue dressed angel, virgo hell-raiser, i should've known it's never enough for you to sit and settle for one saved soul.
you were everything and more.
so it did broke me down.
hell, what did you expect?
who the fuck leaves like that anyway? decks of cards, broken crystals, dried geraniums. men and women pass through the street where i went and race you up. walking to the downtown where our pictures burned in flames. who the fuck leaves like this? trusted benefactor to arch nemesis. i never thought you'd be the one standing with a dagger in your hand, hiding your face underneath an iron mask. i never thought you'd be the one seeping into the darkness of a winter solstice, leaving a phantom played to commemorate our tragic rite of passage.
it's true that i chase pavements waiting for your return here in an abandoned railway station. a ghost in a brown coat, holding a basket of four leaf clovers crocheted from thin silver lining threads. weeds growing under my high school shoes, air thick with accidental indentations. well it's been three years after all. a thousand and ninety five moon hovering above what you would call 'fortitude'. big words, bigger lies. all i know was i wasn't going to give up until you came and take my bones away. mortals break into immortality. perform a proper burial, will you?
unless you close the tomb, i would not know how to stop wishing for more. unless you burry me with your stone bead bracelet, i would not know peace. those nights you spent tracing constellation on my arms were burning in a film reel. the longest seven minutes of my life. a part of me wanted to stay in this perpetual torture just to get a glimpse of your sickening beauty. it tears me apart to say i want to let us go. but i have been standing here for three years and i can hear the siren coming. as you'll hear when you know the end is near. as you'll hear when you know it's time to go.
will you do that for me? will you put an end of this? our secret life in the redwood forest shall be the heaviest weight i will ever bestow but nothing could ever compare. it's a soul-consuming love but nothing could ever compare. i've been drowning in lies and betrayal but nothing could ever compare. can you hear me on my knees begging?
please take me away. to a place where a pledge means more than crumpled letters addressed to names we choose for each other. where forecasts means hope and not shivers of anxiety. to a place where you and i exist as a picture of a beautiful memory and not the beginning of Achilles' downfall. to a place where we stood between science and superstition, a knowing grin on both our lips as we watch the redwood forest burn.
take me to a place where i can finally let this go and be free.
