william's brittle eden

some days I live in reverse.

but you've already heard this story.

remember?

“once upon a time a princess lost her way in the woods, and try as she might she could not find her way home”

it happens. and not just in fairy tales.

these are days of kneeling horses and unframed mirrors. here, juicy, gypsy violins mock this Eden face and I follow your grassy imprints into the olive grove, once again. and again. and again.

and you’ll adore me and undress me, and I won’t say no because I never did and I always do, and it’s who we were:

juicy

and I’m soothed by the rhythm of “that” song, the corazon of that song. and all its bloody damnation. as though somehow you are forever trapped within it, a tiny chalcedony butterfly.…..

“and I’ll do anything you ever dreamed to be complete
little pieces of the nothing that fall
oh, put your arms around me
what you feel is what you are
and what you are is beautiful”

i might have listened harder, heard the inequalities in those words but I played for higher stakes, and I lost. and i don't go there anymore.

later, when the Braille days move forward, I’ll tell you that I didn’t lose the lesson, just you. I’ll tell you that your red leather dreams were just that. dreams. i’ll convince you that this misted season is over and that, you, philosopher king, have been relinquished to the engravings of the past. i can be quite convincing about the white cliffs of Dover. especially since you’ve tumbled over them.

next time will be different. next week, next year, next month, I won’t let you take me there.

and then I remember my twelfth year. i think about the boy, Sean, shy and lanky…a philosophical politician…smiling sadly and handing me a love poem scrawled on a piece of pink paper, a drawing of a dove flanking the title. and, just for a moment, I feel, no, I know that love in all its forms leaves little pieces of hope-etched pinkness curled up inside your heart. And that you’ll come back again for more.

even when it’s over.

but next year, I won't go with you. I'll stay home and eat watermelon instead

won’t i.

(lyrics from "Slide" by the Goo Goo Dolls)