they told me to chase my dreams
but what if
i can't sleep?

Precision lived in the way she spoke
Cadence like a poem
She could have wrote.

She wore heels in my kitchen
as she danced around the sink.
She had been soaking in music all day,
she needed the noise to think.

I could feel her desire and approval
of all my corners and sharp edges
and all my performances, she applauded
never seeking my reform
She just wanted to slip out of the face and clothes she had worn
All day.

But those heels stayed on
tapping the hardwood floor
I could hear her in my kitchen
smothered by the bright red walls.

But those heels stayed on
so she could make the music,
as she danced around like
there was a light flowing in.
I could feel aggression in the acoustics
that somewhere beneath all that soft skin
something learned to be muted
a streak of darkness,
that small spot she wouldn't let me in
She held it so dear and so tight
I couldn't get near

When we fell to ashes dreaming of ways to connect
I could feel the abstract effect
of her fingertips at the base of my neck
on the side of my cheek
in the curls of my hair
tangled and tugging
Little tears she left
on my back and arms colored in white
because I wanted to harness her light

I should have known she'd be gone before she left
so when I saw her there
a luminous, nonchalant stare
I knew she was simply unaware
of how my kitchen is still swollen with the music
of her clicking red heels
of how my floors have deep wounds that are beginning to peel

So, I burned through August like a pack of cigarettes
With a distaste for oval-faced, brunettes,
And I'm trapped inside the mind of a theorist
pretending your vacant pity
will make my sight clearest

Red morning commutes
awoke in September, with optimism to settle disputes,
Riding in the soft rain of yellow leaves,
but I'm not the only one who grieves
over dancing, straight-haired women
in red high heels

So when she appeared in my atmosphere
somewhere  behind dark curls, I began to feel
How afraid I was to draw you near

Her mistrust of my performances
and sharp edges
she soaked in the soft piano that drummed from the fireplace
and spilled in through the skylights in my room.
We laid in bed through Sunday's noon.
Silent kisses became the only music that played -
the rustle of sheets, quiet moans
the subtle changes in tone
in and out, constant static.
You didn't feel the need to fill the silence.
So I let the silence in.
We used to be such experts on reliance
Now we were never under each other's skin
This was not a game, either of us was going to win

I heard you come through my front door
you were all smiles in a small black dress
The lack of guilt behind,
the desire to watch your undress
was an innocent crime, but I couldn't confess.

When you wrapped your arms around me
I heard your shoes against the floor
then running down the carpets
as we drifted past my bedroom door

I never confessed
How loving you was driving towards an eastward storm
away from the blue skies growing behind me in the west.
How I tried to describe you as an art form
the kind that flows into me
but I'm an aseptic scholar
To have thought of you like poetry,
when you were a watercolor
painted in sparrow black.
How I loved you like an echo,
but you were a small whisper
that never came back.

The soft trickle of rain leaves
the little cough, as your hand weaves
Her head buried in my sheets
damaged by each day in the week
We laid in bed, wondering what wouldn't last
and waited for October to pass

Upon your clothesline I have been stretched for somewhere between hours and minutes. The rope burns my skin, my weight sags from pins.
I can feel wrinkles forming where I'm pinched and pulled, and an out-of-place heaviness rests on my drooping shoulders.
I do not belong here, among your delicates, your laces and silks. I deserve nothing more than to be soaked in the wash bin with graying rags.
Yet you have seen something in me, a rarity of fabric, of color. Something that is deserving of special detergent and air-drying.
And in your presence, the bad thoughts and negativity slowly evaporates, leaving me like drip after drip of tearful water.

Dripping peach juice down our chins,
chasing each other in the fiery sunset.

Veins popping out of your arms
begging something I couldn't quite make out....

You would draw me.
Charcoal.
My body blown up on the big screen,
my curves soft like the smoke you were blowing out of your mouth.

The ***** videos,
followed by the sweet ones,
the ones with the sun in my hair,
our laughter electric as we fell down the rabbit hole.

The spray paint we dropped on the roof
as we ran from the sirens in the distance.

Electric, electric, you are my electricity.
No one can catch us if we float on air.

You said
"will you be my girl, will you be bad for me?"
And I slid down the slide, my legs scraping the mulch.
"For you babe. And you only."

The curve of your spine against my arm.
The freckles on your back,
the fine hairs on your neck pressing into my lips.
The warmth.
The light coming through the blinds,
your face illuminated.

You throwing up under the streetlights,
windows fogged, sleepy eyes saying:
cmon love lets just make it home.
Everything is gonna be okay, the police are gone..
Cut your losses, let's make it home.

Christmas trees in bay windows,
we watched them jingle.

I would leave love letters under your pillow,
in your car, whisper them to you as you drove.

Magic.
You're a magic man.

And in your boxes- your hidden treasures..
I would stare at them until you set me under another spell..

Your dark hair wrapped up in my fingers..
Another sunset.

Asleep in the back of your jeep,
in the middle of the woods,
river water burning my throat.
Listening to you *****-
always vomiting,
always kissing.

Peach juice dripping.

There was a time when I told myself that I couldn't live without her.
There was a time when I thought she was everything the world could offer.
I used to think that she was who I would grow old with.
I used to think that we'd both be happy with each other in the next 20 years.
I used to think that I wouldn't survive college for a month without seeing her.

I was wrong.
I was wrong to believe that I would love her until I died.
I was wrong to believe that one day I would wake up beside her.
I was wrong to believe that I would hold her hand and call her mine.
I was
young
and
stupid.
I should have known better to not dwell in my childlike fantasies.
I'm no Prince Charming.

What did I know of live?
Nothing.
I was infatuated.
Dangerously infatuated.
I was at the point where I would be willing to kiss her
feet
just to gain her attention, just her attention.
I knew nothing about how love worked.
All I did was give her my heart and watch happily as she took it
and stomped it
into a
mushy paste.
Something in my mind told me that she would be reciprocating my feelings, but I was
blind.

You see,
when I escaped your love
I had rocks tied to my ankles in knots,
and I walked into the lake
barely recognising myself,
just caught up in a memory and replaying
the pain in my head, so numbing that
I detached from anyone else’s love.

I thought love, real love, was about sacrifice.
You fed me lies about true love -
never ending ‘happily ever afters,’
and in my naïve mistaken heart,
I trusted to believe real love meant death -
that true sacrifice was self-sacrifice.

So, dressed in the wedding dress
(I was to wear on Monday)
my hair plated the way you liked it,
your grandma’s emeralds around my neck,
earrings dropping as a pendant, and the ring
on my left hand, I walked.

I walked.
I held tightly onto the bouquet of lilies
(were they not always meant for funerals)
and I stepped into the lake.
Cold water rising up my thighs,
cold water which actually felt more ‘known’
than the unknown land of your love.

I wasn’t even scared.

I’d washed down fear with
a bottle of pain.
I washed down fear with
pills of despair.
I just kept walking.
And the only sound I remember,
is my humming of Beethoven’s Für Elise.
In my mind, I could see you dancing
en pointe- your feet as eloquently poised
as the pianists fingers,
never in a race to finish -
just movements of grace.

And that’s who I am today -
I am the dancer
(Odette and Odile).
My humanity is now outdated -
I too, throw myself into the lake,
and, as I take my final breath
we – you and I, my lover –
are seen flying past the moon.

© Sia Jane