We lie here with our loved
In the dampest of fields
Amid the days
When the dawn and sunset quarrel.
The guns are heard echoing in the fields,
"Mark
And
Take
And
Break."
And we who were loved
When the sky was still grey
Sleep in the fields,
Short lived,
Dead and Gone.

Please do not write me
And remind me how we were in love.
We were never in love.
We were merely kids
Who knew not the first thing about love.
We were simply victims
Of the seduction of other's words
Who loved to tell us
How beautiful we were,
And to two young, naive, foolish artists
(Who knew nothing of the world)
Nothing was more important than beauty
Whether it be true
Or whether it be false.

He could never be quite certain
Whether she belonged to him
Or to the sky
This girl with tiger blood
And lazy hair,
For though she slept beside him,
He heard her voice in her sleep
Speaking to all the skeletons of her past
Explaining to them
That nothing caged can fly
And hoping they understand.

He wakes every morning 
To stare into the mirror 
And wonder when his face 
Turned like elephant skin;
For all his mind recalls
Is a memory of a laughing girl
Who pulled the ribbons from her hair,
Until one day she stole his sheers
To carpet the floor 
With black raven wings,
All because she longed to drink
From the basket of life,
But in his animal-instinct weakness
He cut the cord
From the source 
To her lips.

Sunday afternoons
When I'm finally alone
With myself again
And I can breathe
Like a normal human being,
When I take Edgar Allan Poe
Off the shelf
And sink into his words again.
Sunday afternoons
When I stop to watch a film,
A cheesy romantic comedy
About two beautiful kids
And no one will tell me
Not to laugh so loud
Or ask me why I'm crying
Such big, heavy tears.
Sunday afternoons
When I catch up:
Tweeze my brows,
Paint my nails,
Take a bath,
Maybe sing a song or two
Like I used to when I was still young
And he called me beautiful.
Sunday afternoons
When I sit on the couch,
Stare at the ceiling,
And dream of Adam
In the perfect quietness of the house,
Knowing that any minute
You'll be back,
Angry and penniless
With the smell of beer on your clothes
And not a dollar to your name.

I could hear your voice
In my head
Speaking to me
The words
You would never say:
"The time I loved you most,
Was the time I knew you least."