Something heavier than smoke
Slaps shockwaves through
Submerged slumber;
No longer am I weightless
Banal trespassers, insidiously seep
Into my phantom future’s furore
While nostalgia takes me
Where I haven’t been, where I see
Rogue snow in the sun
Vain, vogue, nowhere to run
Anomaly, you are no exception
To the rules of death and taxes.
So wish well on the unknown, invented,
And try not to wish that you were here
For the wishing only worsens
That which we may never be;
Sweet dreams
I thought I saw you
In the motion blur of a passing car
While I walked slovenly by
Making lazy rhymes
About the persistence of dishonest memories.
I thought I saw you
On a train to the brighter future
That we always used to speak about
When we were white.
I thought I heard you
Once in every hundred voices
But soon I tired
Of holding high hopes for your return
For they were heavy
On my weakened heart
I thought I smelt you
In a cacophony of nostalgic perfumes
But I couldn’t pick out who
Dared to whisper the same false virtue.
I thought I saw you
In dreams, and memories
But it wasn’t you,
For I had imagined your hues
And you were a glorious portrait
Until I saw you in truth
With teeth bared,
Glaring eyes and dark hair
Still a child, not all there
And how he followed,
Tempted and lovedrunk
Totally, blissfully unaware
That you’re a fairytale
Without an ending
How do you feel -
Hips, in abstract
Pear-shaped and tearjerking
As you stand far away?
Our present is rain
Weighing down our fine furs
When we fly from fear
In search of fictional futures
Furrow brows and choke
On words that we both know.
And I am sorry;
For you are no less a mother
In bearing my memories
Than Aphrodite was to Eros.
So were we made from the same
Restless sea-foam as Gods
I would not be surprised
For I am as free,
I feel as infinite
As you have made me.
We were somewhere between A and B when it occurred to me that we had arrived at an entirely original letter. Or perhaps, it was simply original to us. While we were flirting with the limits of lawful travel, I felt the peculiar sensation of this action becoming detached from its meaning. That is, every line and light of the road became synonymous with the same word being repeated over and over until the subject became auxiliary to the sound and feel of the letters on your tongue. I tasted this trip just like I taste my words. Words. Words. What do they mean?
This effect was transferred almost seamlessly to travel. Smoking in the kind of silence that depends on immense fatigue and sparse music, we found the beauty of the journey while we had forgotten both where we had come from and where we were going. The car had become our home, and our destination had been reduced to roads that had been named and re-named with numbers. I think at that time it was the A17, which to me was indicative of the road between myself as I am now, at 17, and myself as I would like to be in the near future. Perhaps by the end of this drive I will come across a road named B18, but right now I’m not even sure if I want to be eighteen.
