you took my hand and i saw
bones leap from flesh, shedding bloodlines,
stark white and grinning naked
above discarded piles of skin
left crumpled on the tile.

you spoke me out of my molding coffin
the kind that rots in open eyes.
on fearful lips and withered hands,
i found myself hoisted into the ceiling
to watch, to wait

for armistice: the warring tribes lived beyond
the reach of my fingertips, and death
had built a graveyard between my arms
and your body. i swore i'd never closed my eyes,

swore i'd never turn my back on calamity.
yet, the darkness came, robed in malcontent,
whisking both marrow and atom
into the breadth of dissonance.

no gentle flow, this. it rocked me, and
my mouth melted away at the furious taste
before it could speak in antidotes and tongues.
i questioned only once the weight
of water, and was told it measured three
times the weight of man.

i was clutched between two empires,
a snake in the dragon's aftermath,
vertebrae snapped and floundering.
yet here, in this place, this vortex of
weightless ground
i waded through the birthlight,
scathed, broken, battered.

the screaming touch
that marked me last
was a subtlety of death.

01/26/2007

Author's Note: this was originally written by mainon a schwartz and myself entitled "for armistice: the dragon's aftermath". third stage. :) it was great fun. the original was entitled, "subtitles that scream" as a topic piece. no idea. don't ask. or, better yet, do. :)

Posted on 01/26/2007
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