you stranger,
you becoming stranger,
your voice the
heart-beat spindle’s threadbare pull,
pulsating in green-light chorus,
washing me in and out of the shore
of an intangible reality
that i think you not only live in,
but that you’ve created for yourself,
cloth of blood and crystalline light
and layer
upon layer
of memory
that may or may not have happened.
i dream of having my own palace in the
inverted sky;
i’d be the taste that
you try to swallow away,
the flickering guilt of
the candle you forgot to blow
out when you left the room—
you left me in the light.
i’d coax that tendril of
half-thought half-baked
slightly-worn
feeling,
weaving it
through the syllables of my fingertips.
the drumming of my hands
across impatient countertops would
keep the time,
and you’d grow in rhythm.
i’d smile,
the smug, gap-toothed knowledge
that comes from molding the inarticulate
summation of
yourself,
you, who i have never met.
our eyes would meet across the infinite
cliff of a space between words,
and that would be enough.
i’d like to be able to leave
the sound of my voice in the
crook of your elbow,
jarring your step as
you try to look past the horizon,
and only see my
tower of
words—
i want to be your babel, baby.