how do I cross the chasm? the distance in your gaze is a dense fog and I am lost in the echoes of my calls to you answer the phone place me against your ear place me against you, close as you dare to be to anyone be to me caught up and out of breath white flag, knotted jaw do not worry, beloved you have nothing to lose but I have you
oh brother where art thou by 0hgravity, literature
Literature
oh brother where art thou
something in the smirk stunned me, in the way you orchestrate, stretching your long arms across the table to pour another glass of wine, to keep my words pouring more and more - red-tinged spite, processing through the muddled movement. I enter drunkenness in a quiet drip, with little resistance and thoughts melt out of me now, bleed into the pale of your stoicism and sudden artificial laughter, striking air at the wrong time, a sharp, icy blue. when did I become afraid of you? but you are just a child, wounded and lost more afraid of me than I of you; mother always said leave the snake be but fear and calculation for self-preservation are not mutually exclusive - and she rarely could see the poison in the rope; how you keep it like a pet round your neck, your secret exit.
an overdressed writer, wearing the distanced gaze of a sound daydreamer, pulverizes ego in navy blue, inkpen pulling out a tumultuous hue between labored marks, drinks the washed and weathered "always" in a burbon-tinted memory of a sweet dawn smile-- to the madness of purpled knuckles dashing against the alluring silence of a wall, to the candle-battered moths, a toast; amidst a soft, lean song carrying on in the periphery violins bowing, pianos pleading for everything warbled to all dissolve into the pained release of a lone note, and in denouement is written a portrait of overwrought authenticity - a picture of clumsily trying to piece back together.
finding nostalgia in unexpected ways not in the camaraderie of a live show but in watching the singer's mouth move the glint of the drummer's gritted teeth as he plows through a rhythm the sweat gathered, glistened on the upper lip of the guitarist how close were we in the sea of it? arms flailing in shared sonic transportation crying out at the full depth of our lungs till our voices cracked vocal cords rippling impossibly in personal address to world weary bards all that's left are recordings all that's left is sitting on separate couches in separate rooms, in separate head spaces hindsight with a tint of jealousy for what seems lost to time absorbing with utter disbelief our carelessness burning at the luxury of large, loud, gatherings taken so passionately for granted but could we have tucked away the experience any more preciously having known?
aren't you guilty of our galaxy aren't you staring down the mouth of it aren't you sad for me aren't you keeping under wing aren't you tired of the dance aren't you wishing for existence more than this aren't I ?
the newness of a night spent sleepless by 0hgravity, literature
Literature
the newness of a night spent sleepless
the countryside is outside her bedroom
the lean curved slice is her nocturnal god
the candlesticks kneel slow
she reached this place in a panic
and is catching her breath
in the yawn of the wind
in the rustle of brush
full of life
beginning again
visiting hours are permanently over. goodbyes by voice mail goodbyes by cassette tape or too late for tangible correspondence; now by way of desperate prayer the gasp then, to heaven when hope collapses, the interrupted hallelujah, and all the sacrilege in that silence. transient transforms into endless quarantine -- isolation by the veil of death.
a portrait of covert affairs by 0hgravity, literature
Literature
a portrait of covert affairs
I hold your hand in a field -- midday, our skirts long and full and cumbersome. we're far from the male gaze. our skin is warm from the heat of the day or maybe our closeness -- my breath melding with your breath in a curious, invisible dance. you look away, cheeks blooming but I know this is a voluntary pause to keep from being overwhelmed and I grasp your chin to turn your face to love, finally, to kiss, finally, to live.
I still think of you sometimes In the way of 3 am conversations In the way of cathartic poetry spoken soft and easy into our secret atmosphere a bundle of comforters between screens I remember the safety of distance and the ache of our emotional proximity the travesty of platonicity, unmatched love I was too lonely even for you desperate at once alluring, attractive and then the mystery unraveled a scenic route to a cul-de-sac. but you wished me such happiness! without the romance of your specific attention and so well-meaning your voice, offered to soothe, only serving to deepen my insomnia yes, I still think of you often which is why I can’t sleep
every poet has their greek tragedy by 0hgravity, literature
Literature
every poet has their greek tragedy
the hard betrayal by your soft hands exposed me. and the door wouldn’t close, no matter how hard you pushed, how you held against the onslaught of my pandora’s, and how your irises shattered. oh you thought in love and in relationship were the same inebriation? a foolish fantasy on your part, on mine, a cute naivety or an Achilles heel, by any other name -- call it the killing spade the shallow banks fill with coins fallen from your eyes, from your mouth because maybe you can swim so far and fast away from it -- but the river is wide.