So entwined

I was trying to be so quiet but the night started playing its tricks.  Everything inside of us is disguised.  There was a great man who predicted the blackout and made constructs of glass and I have his black and white photograph.  He has ascended but his words remain clear.  I was in the city at one point though all I have now are the memories.  But these are flowing and strangely malleable and things begin to happen I do not immediately recall.  This is all like an experiment I tell myself.  Voices and spirits wander in and out and they’re changing rooms and I often do not feel the shame I should.  There are separate corridors and gold on the pages and these are the senses that surround.  

I’m lying in bed but so alone and deprived.  I feel a strange and wonderful presence and wonder if it’s all in my mind.  Words are whispered in my ear and I realize they are just inside my head and they sound like spells once bottled up and now joyously released.  The sounds outside comfort as they surmise the strange passage in which I am traveling.  I see a hood of many colors and her voice is sounding like every language at one time.  I wonder why this music sounds so perfect and I feel her touch my shoulder and she is at once terrifying – my personality begins to disintegrate – and she is also the source of my comfort and tells me everything will be all right, always.  I believe her.  

Obsolete imaginings, no matter that I do my best to deny them.  Blue and blonde, this mother sings like she’s crying.  Every time he tries to escape, his ship is pulled back and crashes once more on the rocks.  Sweet intimacy in the open, he cheats like the finest of libertines.  The harmony is too bold and my fingertips trace lines around these destroyed pictures.  Her anger is pure and her salvation is a lesson and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in any other way.  There is only this temptation, of loves inside eternal unrest.  Is it she who comes to the masquerade ball that night; so tired and elegant but never more sure of her devotion?  She pulls death from her body and releases it back to the earth.  And I hope I am still dancing with her when she realizes how lost we are.  And the hooded woman in the hotel room is still protecting us all.  There is purity that reads like history.  But she is still around us and inside us and he can’t take back any of his sinful desires.   

But the laughter turns to rain that falls into coal black hair.  There is only mystery and pedestal and the glorious downfall of an empire.  She just smiles and turns a blind eye.  Inside there are so many colors he has never been able to discern.  She removes the formalities and he shakes with the disquiet.  There is only the dream where he is underneath everything and she creates and he rests on her shoulder.  I see this all happen and I know he will always come back.  She is vampiric and wonderful; so cruel and so chaotic.  His spirit is trapped just as she walks away without saying goodbye.  

Why am I so conscious of my blood?  Everyone’s eyes need to be averted as they pass by.  There is a tornado above my head and I am doing my best to feel fine.  It’s time to begin a release but there’s no moving on when there only exists denial.  From the vantage point at the hotel, the streets below were all festivals and brilliance.  There were so many it was easy to feel so gloriously alone.  Climbing the stairs, he had already numbed his desire.  He had drinks on the roof and imagined the bridge and it was a pleasant memory to recall almost jumping though sometimes he remembered actually jumping and dying and this offers its own special touch.  

But he cries again and they present themselves once more in their own way.  One can match his despair and offer a chance at something higher.  She is limited by her maternal bonds and beautiful in this fragility.  She knows dominance only as a symptom of his mind.  But when she opens eyes these thoughts have become her reality and she holds his hand during the torture.  

The second laughs and wreaks havoc and knows her distance will only provoke and inspire.  She demands to be worshipped and discovers such propensity to dominate.  He enjoys feeling used and worthless and this is the reality inside his mind and from the perspective of the few who care enough to look.  He does not understand his own words anymore but this hardly matters.  

These two at once are the greatest painting; the colors mix in the night.  They mingle and combine in perfect time.  They make demands and form connections and fingers interlock.  They say I love you and he simply wants to die.  Why was a kiss made to be so wonderful that everything else must be derided?  Walking into the room wearing a black dress, there are fireflies and gold fairies.  

And the last one – who was the first one – returns and still does not remove her hood.  She kissed the spirit and forgave and when on to appear to someone else at the exact same moment.  Did she forgive all of us?  So three people lost and one always saving, catching when they fall as they fall each and every time.  And I have watched all of this only to realize I have no true claim.  I could never be the passive observer that I describe.  I hope to stay in that ballroom forever but I can’t figure with whom he is dancing but I know the other will circle around him.  And they will look up the ceiling and see her there instead of mistletoe.