Day one thousand and ninety six.
I
It is day eleven and our blinding stadium lights
have been shut off, the scent of black rose
drowned out by the petrichor,
as the rain weathers the paint,
our little up-and-comer
does a three-sixty and becomes abandoned again.
II
It is day thirty-six
and my skin is forgetting your touch.
Two thousand five hundred and twenty billion
cells of mine have died and been replaced
and I worry soon this body
will not have known you.
III
This year, I stand by the window,
a cigarette dangling lazily from my fingertips,
fingers-crossed my smoke turns signals
and the suburban breeze wafts into your home,
carrying my heavy sighs
that here only fall on deaf ears.
This year, you pluck guitar strings
instead of brushing tears off my cheek.
The notes you sing come through the wire,
and for a moment, I forget the one I am walking on.
IV
Three thousand is why the trains won't run,
four thousand is why our cars won't start.
It is the modern dystopia building barriers
of brick numbers and cemented chance,
of chaos in the capital, of household prisons,
and all we have in common:
the rolling numbers, the music, and the stars.
I still wake to see your face
translated into ones and zeroes.
It is a mere mirage of you
but my desert desiccated heart
believes itself to be beating beside yours,
next to you and
two hundred and twenty-five kilometres apart.
V
Time does not seem to have any bearing on you.
As they slander, abuse... forget me,
my pain shatters me, speaks in saltwater streams,
I am all empty shell and shattered stained glass memories.
You have been there to pick up every last piece,
grazing your fingertips as you dust gold between the cracks,
as if to say after this golden repair,
my beauty is twofold.
Take me with you on your wandering days,
even those you walk with your shoulders hunched,
head hung as you hold a map that has no markings,
as a million voices in your head
screaming which direction to take.
We have a home, you and I.
It is not here, it is not now.
It will smell of spring and aged books,
down the line perhaps several thousand more days.
where my heart will lie down next to yours
and never have to move again.