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Act One
Scene: a blue room with white curtains all drawn together tight
A broken record player filling my mouth with buzzing noise
You sit on the couch the way a queen sits on a conquered city
My eyes blind themselves with the dark of your hair

Time: When the sun and the moon collide

This is the part where I meet you
Where I really meet you
Where I get to know the inside of your cheek
The beating of your fluttery heart
The bruises on your sides like blooming roses
The soft hush of your words melting into my mouth

We play at lovers in a game that isn't our own

Act Two
Scene: Flashing lights sending the room into a flurry of technicolor madness
A bottle of ***** burning my throat like swallowed wooden matches
In a sea of movement you turn into a deity all on your own
My hands shake from the inside out and it is nothing, it is nothing

Time: When the waves engulfed the shore

This is the part where I hate you
Where I don't really hate you
But I hate him and him and her and him
And the way you are holding on to bones that are not my own
The clawing at my chest
The blood spinning in my head
The way you mean everything to me
And I don't even cast a shadow in your world
The way you shine and all I can do is long

I never meant for jealousy to wear my skin like a tailored suit

Act Three
Scene: An empty street and a lonely light
Jagged bricks digging into the soft part of my neck
You lean on a car and you don't look me in the eye
My tongue bleeds from all the words I cannot say

Time: When the stars fall from the sky

This is the part where I lose you
Except that I don't really lose you
Because in order to lose something, you must first have it
And I never had you
But I did keep your butterfly laugh in the cracks between my ribs
Your favorite lipstick in the pocket of my jacket
The broken shards of your full length mirror buried in my hands

I knew some people always loved more, always loved less, but I never knew you didn't love at all

Act Four
Scene: a blue room with white curtains all drawn tight
A broken record player imitating life
You are nowhere to be found  and yet your ghost keeps popping around
My spine creaks from the weight of the world, of love, of you

Time: When the moon stills sing for the morning light

This is the part where I wait for you
Where I really wait for you
Because I am stupid and naive and hopelessly hopeful
And maybe it's pathetic
But I'm still waiting for the sound of your heavy footsteps
Your red sweater on my desk
The warmth of your presence
For you to love me back

I'm still waiting for you to come back
I am a library
Of half-read books
That no one has bothered
To finish
My dear, every touch from you
Is holy absolution
Every press of the lips
Is a new wave of salvation
Time and time again
You have rescued me from damnation
In you lies the sacred and the divine
Darling, the prophets would have built shrines
With roofs touching the skies
Altars all bathed in golden light
Crusaders would have stabbed every man
With their own spines
Kings and queens and popes
Would have swallowed
The gems from their crowns and thrones
To have this love

This love is too big
To be shoved into confessionals
This love is too holy
For tightly gripped prayer beads
And acts of contrition
This love is too great
For anything less than
The highest seat in heaven

No old bearded bible entity
Can tell me how to live in my faith
No-one- not even Leviticus or Moses or whoever the ****
Can tell me that this is a sin

How can it be a sin
When I have stopped searching for God
The moment I saw you
"You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination"
If you cry inside your bedroom
And there is nobody around to hear you
Do you still make a sound?

You are at the foot of your bed
The pieces of a broken mirror
Surrounding you like makeshift stars
You build yourself a galaxy to drown in
And maybe you cried for salvation
Or maybe you cried out of pain
Or maybe you cried on the ****** chance
That someone will hear

You are at the foot of your bed
The claw marks on your chest
Making you look more savage than ever
You howl at the moon
But it is so dark
And the sky is so vast
And the moon was never there to begin with

You are at the foot of your bed
And you know
That your house was built on thin walls
And you keep waiting for
A knock on the door
Or a voice telling you to stop
Or any indication that someone heard you
And you know, oh you know
It's never gonna come

If you cry inside your bedroom
And there is nobody around to hear you
Do you still make a sound?

Does it matter?
You are still alone
i burned myself out to keep you warm
and you said that i was dripping ash on your carpeted floor
The other day
When I said that your face reminds me of a rhinoceros
I wasn't saying that you look like a bulky box
Or that your skin looks grey
I was really trying to say that
You make me feel like there are a hundred
5 ton mammals stampeding across my heart
And sometimes when I look at you
I can't even breathe
Because all the weight of wanting this
Crushes my lungs til my chest burns like an African desert
Consequently most rhinos are found in Africa
And I researched all of this in the hopes that
Maybe you would understand

You see the thing is I am not good with emotions
And I know as much about love as I know about quantum physics
And I don't even know what quantum physics is about
Or what it means for that matter

I've been trying to read all the romance novels that I could find
I've been trying to watch all the rom-coms I can torrent
Hell I even watched Valentine's Day thrice
But I still don't know what to do when I'm with you

I am unsure and clumsy and petrified
So much so that I can't even work up the courage
To hold your hand
I'm trying, I really am
It's just so **** difficult
When falling in love feels more like
Jumping out of a helicopter
A hundred thousand feet up
Without a parachute on

One day I will be able
To directly say what I really mean
Without metaphors involving animals
That only I understand
But for now let me just say
Your face reminds me of a rhinoceros
An old piece for the new year
Talk to me
Talk to me about half-finished journals and empty theaters
Talk to me about the calluses on the soles of your feet
Do you think they look like art?
Talk to me about the bobby pins stuck between the sheets of your bed
Talk to me about the broken doorbell in your childhood house
Why have you never gotten it fixed?
Do you think it says a lot about your family?
Do you think it’s a metaphor for your parents’ relationship?
Talk to me about the ghosts in your head
I wanna see if they look like mine
If they were friends in some past, unfulfilled life
Talk to me about kites
Talk to me about knee high socks
What do they remind you of?
Talk to me about spilled lemonade
Does the sourness still linger on your tongue
Long after the mess as been mopped up?
Talk to me about your 10th grade English teacher
Do you resent her blatant favouritism?
Do you wonder why she didn’t like you the best?
Do you ever wonder why
It seems like nobody likes you the best?
Talk to me about the peonies in the garbage chute
Talk to me about untied shoelaces
And an 8 year old’s skinned knees
Talk to me about slippery floors
Talk to me about illegal downloads
Talk to me about Tarsiers
Talk to me about oil pastels
Do you prefer them over any other art medium
Because they are dirtier, messier and more difficult to work with it?
Talk to me about recycling
Do you think it’s pointless?
Or do you think it’s gonna make a significant difference?
Talk to me about Broadway musicals
Talk to me about Hercules
Have you ever dreamed of being immortalized
Through the whispering of the stars?
Talk to me about god
Do you think god made man
Or did man make god?
Talk to me about clay pots
Talk to me about cacti
Talk to me about the color grey
Talk to me about plastic balloons
When did you learn that the art of letting go
Is closely intertwined with the tragedy of loss?
Talk to me about films
Talk to me about knuckles
What do you tell your grandmother
When she asks why they are bruised and wounded?
Talk to me about Geishas
Talk to me about roadtrips
And that one time when you were 15
And you drove away in your older brother’s car
Feeling young and reckless and so so alive
Talk to me about pain
Every stabbing hurt
Every mouth filled with blood
Talk to me about joy
Both the abundance and the lack of it
Talk to me about love
And warmth
And light
And the sound of coming home
Talk to me
Write your life’s story on torn Christmas wrappers
And I will hold them in my hands like sacred beads of prayer
Talk to me
Open the cracks of your spine and engulf me in the shade of your eyes
Talk to me

Let me in
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