The colour of hazelnuts covets the end of her mouth,
The shape of her tongue, the gestures of her jaw.
There is pressure and fear and envy in the palm of her
Hand and she chases away the thorns that grow around
Her. Staring at a closed window from below, in the cold,
She re-imagines her smell, the gallop of her hair, the volumes
It spoke and the blind and empty promises, his fingers
Ever-erect, voluptuous, scavenging and unwashed, the wax
Of her tender scalp on my mouth, I couldn’t trace back the scent
And fell in love with its anonymity and apparent succulent rootlessness.
Letters in green, peels and slices, gathering underneath my nails,
And I evoke your face in the room I now stand in and wail inside.
It feels like your elbows impale my collarbones and I won’t let you
Get through to my heart and you can’t stop laughing, your teeth
A tyranny that promises to never end, lips that will never allow
Closure, a tongue that knows its way around my features, my eyelids.
I’ve written letters to you, sent them to you, post-mortem,
Inhaling your perfume, in my head, forcing it onto my own
Deserted skin that feels as cold as yours and I look at you still,
Fascinated, childlike, needy and as free as unprotected.
I stopped my body from growing, I wanted to fit into yours
And maybe disappear, dream of your never-existing kisses,
Your distant and dead caresses, the dissonant voice that ends in a tremor.
I didn’t see your decay and death under your eyelids, the shutters
Of your soul, your vanishing memory, the love you took away with
You, your eyes ransacked of everything that is you, I’m happy that
I didn’t look into those eyes that were yours no more, the black erasure,
The yellow blank page, the absence of you, the blown-out monolithic scriptures
Of your life. You blinked without knowing that you did, a storm bursting
Through your upper body, you moaned my name and remembered, acid in
The back of your mind, I’m so far away, my head under your chin.
The sound of my lonely steps, and I think of your breasts,
They held me more than your arms and I mourn the divorce
From your body, how it went up in flames and I held your
Hand in my head and crumbled, within me, you fell apart,
And I run towards all the images of you that fade, the trap door
That imprisons your voice. My face sinks into my hands
And I detect your smile, a crown over my head, warmth on my neck.
Croque-Melpomene 