RheeCalamity

This is me now: I dislike using my phone And my wrists ache after a day of holding books So many words, I drove myself mad trying to arrange them, just so, for you Anything to make you want to be here But it never was about the words I know that now This nostalgia doesn't have to be significant I can choose for it not to be This is me now: Did you know it's okay to not finish a bottle of wine? And that you can go home early because you miss your dog? Do you remember the children we planned And the foraging for seashells On desolate beaches, in knitted jumpers Like some kind of miserable Irish film In turns, fierce and mild with each other

She decided it was okay to sit for a day or two Eyelashes on cheeks, arms around knees If only being still could mean silence A momentary lull in the oceanic roar

She had a ruby mouth and she came to you gladly Speaking your name softly like it was a secret She was wrapped in melancholy But you stripped her down like she was bruised and tender Soft soft soft hands and eyes She’d traveled so far Over the arctic,     the storm clouds     the horizon She’d packed her bags and hocked her life All so she could idly watch a foreign sunrise by your side ‘Tell me pretty things’ she always asks Speechless despite her chatter For a poet, she never is good with words For an artist, you always are.

I'll nurse this sickness from your bones I'll fold you in and tell you stories when the sun refuses to rise We'll draw family trees on the walls and fill in the gaps with silent movie stars Even though our fingers are poking through the holes in our pockets And we can't remember when our cupboards weren't empty Our eyes are bright with the same fever We'll give a homeless man our last cigarette And sing him a song about those deep south blues The blisters on our feet testament to how far we've wandered together Oblivion is a good band-aid for people with a past But even though we are wrapped around each other We can't sink into the

Our names are being forgotten by the wind that blows over those hills Every syllable a sirens song that led us away, astray Lost in that cascading landscape The sun has burnt us ochre red Our fingertips stained with the matching earth Our secrets painted onto each others skin We shan't forget that other world Although it is long gone We are children of this clay now There is a rhythm that pulsates late at night Alongside our night magic, that well rehearsed dance The air is electric with it And the hills are groaning and settling in We clutch at each other with urgency Two of Gaia's dyed children Alone beneath the ceaseless sky Our biographie

You threw yourself from a seaside cliff Your father's hand on your back Oh Icarus, you never could fly But I fear you knew that all along Crete's gone to war with Babylon And I'm still sobbing into my pillow Your charred feathers on my doorstep And the ghost of your hands on my fevered forehead Oh exquisite Icarus I have your broken bones in a pile here I'm slowly placing you back together When you're finally mended We'll lock ourselves away from that scorching sun And pretend none of this happened

I'm the compulsive rainmaker That found herself asleep on your bathroom floor You're the figment of my imagination That picked me up and fed me your candied words I spoke too much Gave too much away I painted myself in those fauvistic colours And shocked you with my transparency You were quiet, watchful Poised to catch me I shook too much Gave too much away I tumbled into your lap You spoke my name softly And I woke up To the sweet taste of you

They'd make dirty love among the sheets The liberation at the idea of what they could be A foreign girl in a foreign city Unsure of where she stands But sure of what she wants 'Who the fuck cares?' he would shrug She'd gasp his name late at night Face pressed into the pillow Laughing with the shamelessness of it all He'd sing her vintage punk And she would read him Nietzsche 'This is youth' she would smile He'd show her how to lose her mind Snatching her words And spinning the fantastic from them Finally, towards the end of their last night She'd press her hands to his face 'I'm gunna make sure you never forget me' she would