The Dialogues

The thin woman with a pearl necklace, and a wine glass in hand, with her nose high up and her mascara too thick: "They fall for me, of course, they fall for the trick all the time."

A man with a goatee and spectacles held too low, with his hands behind his back: "I do have my own personal Louvre, thanks for asking, and the Mona Lisa shall be in it soon, if my business allows it."

An innocent girl, short blonde hair and chilling blue eyes, a pixie in all ways but twinkle: "I find decisions are the hardest things to make. In time I'll find making love the easiest."

Two years later, Barbara, who'd thrown the little gathering, read an article in the paper about a bearded man known as a loather of art, a frail and sickly woman selling precious jewelry at ridiculously and desperately low amounts of money (blasphemous, Barbara had tutted when she read that ad), and a washed-up lady who had seven children with seven different men.

What the newspaper didn't say was all three of those incidents had everything to do with each other. Everything meets down the road.

You and Me: An Exaggeration

so i suppose i'll sit here in all my wishing, in all my needing to be praised
in all my bitterness,
in all my "wish we could've" and
"wish i could've" and "wish you could've"
and one
year
ago,
i met you

i didn't know it yet but you would wreck me

Nous

What do you want to be when you’re older? the world always asks, the world that does not understand how their veins turn like knobs, the world that doesn’t understand the clockwork of their insides. And then, they who did understand the mathematics of their philosophies, they answer stars, always stars. Big and bright and shining, balls of gas and energy, celestial, grand, and twinkling. The world that never got it would only nod, pretending to grasp their passions. Even the earth below would not swallow that lie. No one really understood them. That was the truth in which they were enveloped in: cold and solid, like an igloo.

What do you want to be when you’re older? the world spits. They say stars still, two years after the first time the world asked. Then, they look pleased. They still want the same thing. The world laughs bitterly, and it sounds like a gasoline leakage, and the screams after it. Funnily enough, the metaphor isn’t that far from the truth – gas leaks, and it covers everything. It paints the earth in fire.

What do you want to be when you’re older? the world asks. They say stars. And then, in their individual voices, screaming, like they haven’t said anything by themselves after years and years: talk show host, musician, writer, singer, businesswoman, architect, conductor, photographer, artist. It’s all simultaneous and urgent, like a secret they’ve never whispered before. They look at each other wounded and apologetic. The sun steals all their words and runs away before they can take them back. The moon introduces a play called Mockery, and it itself is the main character. The world sits back on its throne and smiles. Mars, the god of war, looks down and worries a little bit.

What do you want to be when you’re older? the world asks. They don’t answer anything anymore. No stars, no professions they only dream of. Walls sprout in the spaces between them, and silence lays curtains over their mouths. Echoes of past wars and visions of hell resonate in the world’s smile.

What do you want to be when you’re older? the world asks, taunting, expecting silence or a sword fight. One very small voice says a star, and it’s a feather from her throat. Another says a star, too, please, and it’s a coin hitting the bottom of a fountain. Star, another one says, all hoarse and cautious and ticking like a clock that has just hit the eleventh minute of the twenty-third hour. A small chorus of wishful noises glosses the ceiling, adds constellations to the solar system with scenes of things that have yet to happen. And then, in all certainty: stars. They look at each other with the little grins they used to wear. Stars. The world can’t say anything. Only stands back, eyes wide as Jupiter. Maybe even bigger.

What do you want to be when you’re older? the world demands, sharp as daggers. They answer stars, they answer lights above everyone. The world laughs, gurgling through a mouthful of petroleum and spite and a little bit of wounded pride and panic panic panic. You’ll burn out, the world says, all ugly and cruel and pleading. They who understood each other laugh, and say we can’t burn out, we haven’t started shining!

the world is changed

i. because you are made of ivory and gold

For all intents and purposes, you are beautiful, and you are fleeting.

ii. the curves of your lips

I want to reach inside your skin, and tug at your veins, and pull, and pull, until I have them wrapped around my wrist like a bracelet made of you. I want to choke you, only so I could tap the beats back into your pulse. It isn't selfish, it's dangerously beautiful. Lethal, and murderous, but it would be a gorgeous scene.

I am a chaser of beauty, and you are a human skyline. Your eyes are streetlights, your neck is a highway, your body is the world, and all its glitter, and all its grime. Your bones are piano keys that I want my fingers to pirouette on.

You are as singular as your fingerprints. Planets, and storybook characters, and strangers that last for seconds cannot hold a candle to you. You blink, and all the world goes dark.

You are the king of the anthills, and the real hills, and the fields beyond, and the forests, and the big cities that swallow you up, and all the clocks, and peacocks, and leather, and faux fur. King of spotlights, and flowy dresses, and well-written books, and meaningless art, and Taylor guitars, and accidental spill sunshine coffee-stains. King of Manolo Blahnik heels, and Hermes bags, and bright-light Greenbelt, little floral bags, and cardigans. King of sound, and light, and space, and mass, and elegance.

You astound astronauts, and philosophers, and scientists. Mathematicians cannot compute your dimensions, or understand the numbers of you, the physics of you, the geometry of you, the planes of you. You influence musicians with your silence. You astound models with only skin and bones. Artists and photographers can never quite catch

you, and the lines of you

iii. rewrite history

(I only have praise for you, and all the wrong words.)

-

The title of this post and the phrases in italics are from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

voix de un meurtrier

i try to grab onto your voice when i forget it, when it tries to slip out of my pocket. it does that sometimes. it isn't locked into my palm yet, like his and his and countless others, because you're a chameleon whose voicebox is his skin.

it's so easy to fall in love with you
because there are so many of you.

but the one i love most seems to hide behind all the others, seems to be the most hidden one, seems to be the voice i can't draw yet

oh, baby. i wish i could listen to you forever, i wish i could pinpoint where your voice would drop and when it would rise and how your lilt makes your mouth look

bet it makes your mouth look stunning, just stunning, if only i could place it

if only you'd let me.

to john

It’s funny, when you think about it – when you met him the first time, you’d said, “I don’t even know where we’re meeting” and then, “I don’t even know your name.” Then, you could think of little else; actually, you couldn’t think of anything else, because it was him all over the walls of your mind. Every resounding ghost of an army’s chaos translated to you as his name instead of gunshots. Instead of bombs and grenades and blood spatters. Even mundane things, stupid everyday things: the all-too-familiar sound of heartbeats through your stethoscope, the clink of your afternoon tea – everything was his name. Your vernacular was Sherlock. It started when you moved in with him.

Sherlock’s cases were like ocean waves, and you knew it coming in. It drew him in. It arrested him, it magnetized him. All he knew was how to swim in it. And you loved it, you loved every moment of it. The first time you came to 221B Baker Street, you hadn’t even had the chance to inspect the flat as much as you wanted to, because what you wanted even more was to be in the company of this fascinating man. You wanted more than anything to hear him speak. You wanted to see how quick his eyes darted and how he solved things, how he was mathematical about mathematical things (after all, he was always presented with physical equations: pink outfit + fashion-conscious lady = pink suitcase). Some days, when he moved, you could hear all his thoughts and theories swoosh around his body, like everything he knew acted with his motion. And you could hear it. And you loved it.

And remember when you shot that cabbie when Sherlock was being rash and proud and too stupid to walk away from the pill? He never told anyone it was you. That was when you became his ocean wave. He never told a soul about that, either. The same way you knew your entire being was enveloped by every idea of Sherlock you ever had. And you never told a soul, or a shadow, or anyone. You just never said it.