Phoenix

I dreamt you took me.
You took me into the flowing water, behind the crystal doors, and kissed me silent.
Swore my voice into moans, and legs into rivers.
I dreamt,
Or maybe I nightmared
That you held me motionless
On a flowing floor
And whispered me into surrender

I dreamt you stabbed me with the slow reaching of your hands
While in your whispers
You laughed

And it is so hard to explain
How I was held like a river
Felt fresh like mud on my face
How you wouldn’t let air pass untouched through your scent
And let a few harmless chuckles pass you’re your vocal chords

I dreamt you ran your fingers through my hair and pulled my eyes shut
Let the droplets of “nos” and resistance fall away
Like an oily memory
Or a hummingbird from a sour blooming tree

Fall away
Like the wings of a mockingbird shut dead
Shut away
Shut loose
Into the flux
Of a burning, crying woman
Who calls me home

i dreamt your skin sliced open under my fingers
my outstretched desperate fingers
with the weakness of a no that meant yes
and the absolution of a stop that meant go
your every palm of skin sliced open
as I ran my only voice and grasped for any sign of recognition

does my hair smell like me?
Does my skin run like my soul does?
Because youre blind, and im reaching for your eyes

I could feel the blood turn to boils turn to scraps of dried skin turn to scars that cover you whole.

I was reaching for undamaged tissue, I was reaching for a part of you that said yes
Yes I know who you are
And I feel who you want to become
And I cry for what you were
I wanted you to kiss that blindness into me
And let me understand

I was reaching for undamaged tissue
But found none
Everything intact cascaded away from me like a ripple
In a cynic lake filled to the brim with broken rafts


You had no face
You had eyes that let my fire feel judged
you had eyebrows quizzically lifting over a groping hand
fuck
you even had a mouth to whisper my own voice away
and lips to seal the contract of my silence

but you had no face
your eyeballs scorched in their sockets
were the only telltale remainder
of a you that used to be before.