Love's Teeth
I. Cherubim
The amusing juxtaposition: drying laundry over the edge of the world.
That crevice trails its brown streaked fingers through thinning air,
Down down down, till just looking down makes my head spin.
This is the edge of you and I, this is the place I dare every moment:
Thinking "why has this happened to us?"
Looking down into the edge of the world in your eyes
Like Merlin, I feel trapped in the crystal with its twists and turns
Curves more cutting than lines.
When it is so hard to call you beautiful, when winter spilled its seed
Over you, ice scent torments me, the blood of children fresh on your clothes
And you want to hear how much I love you…
I do, may God help me, I do-
I only have to look into those eyes, the edge… the accustomed color
Remembers me to how you were, the most perfect one,
The distant electric sun. My salvation.
And your arms can still be warm, your kiss can still make me tremble.
Your heart was never mine, but I like to lie to myself,
Saying things can still be the way they were,
If only I love you enough.
Seeing the coming death in your eyes: the brink of the end,
Never a return past the decay of dreams, the scent of ice.
And I dream like you did, of cold stones filling my throat,
Weighing down the back of my head and pressing against delicate
Membranes of eyes until I am certain my brain will explode
Violently, like a shaken egg.
This is your brain. This is your brain on Rociel.
Any questions?
And I feel… like I'm hanging clotheslines over the edge of the world,
Trying to wring some sense of purpose and meaning out of the moments,
The moments spent pretending death isn't always in front of us.
Life goes on, if you can call it life for monsters like us.
And was this your intention all the time?
Am I just a wax doll like the others, a marionette dangling from your pretty hands?
Should I be called Pinocchio, a Pinocchio with the laughable conceit
That he is a real boy?
In none of the myths does the creature brought to life have the capability
To love its creator—
Does that mean I never really had life?
It hurts so much… it hurts so much sometimes.
And yet I could never leave you alone, I love you so much.
And love is really a bitch, like you and I.
Inorganic
I won't can't it will not end this way
I can break you, never fear
Open the basin of your skull and play with the contents
Until you love me like I love you.
What is it about you why does this scent drive me crazy?
What is this crazy passion that fills me up to my teeth
As if this body you gave me is possessed?
This terrible desire to have your body stretched against it
I hate you I love you I need you
You are the only one, the only one who can make me feel this weak
And so I will see you on your knees
Tearstreaked
That will be a better end to it.
You will beg to have me someday, like all of them
Why do you deny the inevitable?
Why not allow me to run fingers through your long hair
Trap it against my mouth feel your pulse with my tongue
So full of life despite everything-
You and I were born to be one being created to be joined
I cannot be prevented
And you know this the best of all.
Oh my sister-
Why are you so cruel?
Black Winged
I cannot put an end to this play.
I needed to hold you in my arms.
So I could watch the kabuki dramas, the stories and tales of love- each protestation and plaint of eternal passion cracked my heart and widened the fissure. I needed you, and you would never be there, warm and pliant in my arms.
I wanted darkness to swallow everything. I wanted you to feel pain like I felt pain, knowing you were already tormented as deeply as I. But in that huddled clustered part of my soul, I was a lover who could think only of himself.
I wanted blackness to swallow everything, most of all myself.
Did tears fall under the brand? I couldn't bring myself to watch. I took great fistfuls of your hair, feeling them like strips of so-fine velvet. My own voice hoarse with tears when I told you I didn't want to feel anymore, I only wanted to feel you in my arms, and I'd defy everything if only you'd be mine.
But you couldn't be. You couldn't ever be.
And so I felt ashamed of ever saying anything. My cheeks burned- you can't imagine it! As if my blood were the pits of Hell. I was filled with this pain that was in turn filled with anger. So much at once flying so fast I thought of nothing.
I said things… that I will always regret.
And now I am more pathetic, more powerless, than you could ever be. It is not like the words of poetry, as unsayable as normal words can be, they do not so unchangeably become the foundation of all our troubles.
I had betrayed you and so I thought, "well then, I shall die." So I killed myself under a sarcophagus mask, waiting only for the day when you could take the life that was yours to take. I always believed that you would, knew that you would.
But in the end I had no understanding of how much more cruel is life.
I. Cherubim
The amusing juxtaposition: drying laundry over the edge of the world.
That crevice trails its brown streaked fingers through thinning air,
Down down down, till just looking down makes my head spin.
This is the edge of you and I, this is the place I dare every moment:
Thinking "why has this happened to us?"
Looking down into the edge of the world in your eyes
Like Merlin, I feel trapped in the crystal with its twists and turns
Curves more cutting than lines.
When it is so hard to call you beautiful, when winter spilled its seed
Over you, ice scent torments me, the blood of children fresh on your clothes
And you want to hear how much I love you…
I do, may God help me, I do-
I only have to look into those eyes, the edge… the accustomed color
Remembers me to how you were, the most perfect one,
The distant electric sun. My salvation.
And your arms can still be warm, your kiss can still make me tremble.
Your heart was never mine, but I like to lie to myself,
Saying things can still be the way they were,
If only I love you enough.
Seeing the coming death in your eyes: the brink of the end,
Never a return past the decay of dreams, the scent of ice.
And I dream like you did, of cold stones filling my throat,
Weighing down the back of my head and pressing against delicate
Membranes of eyes until I am certain my brain will explode
Violently, like a shaken egg.
This is your brain. This is your brain on Rociel.
Any questions?
And I feel… like I'm hanging clotheslines over the edge of the world,
Trying to wring some sense of purpose and meaning out of the moments,
The moments spent pretending death isn't always in front of us.
Life goes on, if you can call it life for monsters like us.
And was this your intention all the time?
Am I just a wax doll like the others, a marionette dangling from your pretty hands?
Should I be called Pinocchio, a Pinocchio with the laughable conceit
That he is a real boy?
In none of the myths does the creature brought to life have the capability
To love its creator—
Does that mean I never really had life?
It hurts so much… it hurts so much sometimes.
And yet I could never leave you alone, I love you so much.
And love is really a bitch, like you and I.
Inorganic
I won't can't it will not end this way
I can break you, never fear
Open the basin of your skull and play with the contents
Until you love me like I love you.
What is it about you why does this scent drive me crazy?
What is this crazy passion that fills me up to my teeth
As if this body you gave me is possessed?
This terrible desire to have your body stretched against it
I hate you I love you I need you
You are the only one, the only one who can make me feel this weak
And so I will see you on your knees
Tearstreaked
That will be a better end to it.
You will beg to have me someday, like all of them
Why do you deny the inevitable?
Why not allow me to run fingers through your long hair
Trap it against my mouth feel your pulse with my tongue
So full of life despite everything-
You and I were born to be one being created to be joined
I cannot be prevented
And you know this the best of all.
Oh my sister-
Why are you so cruel?
Black Winged
I cannot put an end to this play.
I needed to hold you in my arms.
So I could watch the kabuki dramas, the stories and tales of love- each protestation and plaint of eternal passion cracked my heart and widened the fissure. I needed you, and you would never be there, warm and pliant in my arms.
I wanted darkness to swallow everything. I wanted you to feel pain like I felt pain, knowing you were already tormented as deeply as I. But in that huddled clustered part of my soul, I was a lover who could think only of himself.
I wanted blackness to swallow everything, most of all myself.
Did tears fall under the brand? I couldn't bring myself to watch. I took great fistfuls of your hair, feeling them like strips of so-fine velvet. My own voice hoarse with tears when I told you I didn't want to feel anymore, I only wanted to feel you in my arms, and I'd defy everything if only you'd be mine.
But you couldn't be. You couldn't ever be.
And so I felt ashamed of ever saying anything. My cheeks burned- you can't imagine it! As if my blood were the pits of Hell. I was filled with this pain that was in turn filled with anger. So much at once flying so fast I thought of nothing.
I said things… that I will always regret.
And now I am more pathetic, more powerless, than you could ever be. It is not like the words of poetry, as unsayable as normal words can be, they do not so unchangeably become the foundation of all our troubles.
I had betrayed you and so I thought, "well then, I shall die." So I killed myself under a sarcophagus mask, waiting only for the day when you could take the life that was yours to take. I always believed that you would, knew that you would.
But in the end I had no understanding of how much more cruel is life.