i think i'll always consider the city home-
long after my body has deteriorated
into the street cracks and my
mind has been misguided by the
faceless names that walk them.
and when my body goes, my spirit too
will stalk the streets that once sank
my heart deeper into the gutter everytime
it rained

[only because the rain always smelled of you]

until then, i will wrap my shoulders
in that smog-y shaul-
only one of the many coverings that
protect me from your touch.

and what a pity it is!
for so long i have yearned to feel
your warmth embrace my quivering
skeleton, the same way you touch me
in those razor-driven memories--
those soft, soothing, silently weeping
brushings that lead me toward
an unfamiliar city sidewalk but
sometimes this sacriligous behavior is too much

and sometimes we do touch, between
linens and sighs as our surroundings
twinkle [but who can decipher
starlight from streetlight any more?]
but i am too bone-chillingly afraid
that one morning you will awaken
to the realization that my touch
is an empty vault and the spark that jumps
from one lip to the other was just
rabid static and nothing more.

even today, long after your hair
and your familiar scent have
become memory, i find myself
dragging my feet over unfamiliar
grounds, fingering the surrounding
skyscrapers with hopes that the
city, in her majestic elegance
and forboding forgiveness, will
one day feed me back to
you(r touch).

but she's determined to hold my
feet to their roots, to the only
thing i have ever known and
she will keep me safe from
the only one for whom i have
ever longed.

but when she is finally through,
my spirit will escape this mangled
bag of bones and flesh and
it will find you, in whatever state
you may or may not be in,
and together our ghosts will glide
between the yellowing lamp lights
and the nameless faces and finally
become one with the city who
drowned me in your scent [and
my sorrows] when i just couldn't
miss you any longer.

03/08/2004

Author's Note: i don't even feel this way about you anymore. why did i have to write this tonight?

Posted on 03/09/2004
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Pearl