A poem about love in a psuedo capitalist totalitarian dystopia. Or, a lovesong from Katniss, to Peeta.

--

This storm is called fire.

It’s raining buckets.

The city shudders, grows small

Expands, disappears inside a birdsong

Glistens on the tips of silver wings.

A cannon explodes.

A clock is ticking, somewhere

The sky is bloody red and yellow, too

No oranges, no soft blues.

Nothing quite the way you like it.

Just coal black and empty wombs

And ash that runs in rivers

Down the length of my spine.

Embers that quiver in the palms

Of my fumbling, futile hands.

And you, alive in a music box.

And you, buried with white roses.

And you, eyes wide and syrup sweet.

You might lie there, cooly in the shade

Of a pear tree

Or against the cold circumference

Of a silver stream

Laid low amidst the tall grass

And the hanging trees

And the flowers that share my

Bastard name

There are sounds and then there are

Sounds, the kind that reverberate

In the back of your mind, in the crux

Of a bowl, you mix, you lay out

You roll, you press, hands the size

Of my father’s

The kind of hands that knot

Like chains along the length

Of my grasping arms

And hold me steady.

And when you look at me

You see me through the eye of a needle

The scope of a lens

My reflection in the gleam

Of a black pearl.

You say such nice things about me

It makes me wish you were dead, or I were dead

Or we were both dead.

I am too selfish to die.

And so I will hold you soft and play you

Gentle, like a mandolin or like

The black strings of a bending bow

Plucking back, about to be let go

Me, half mad, pumping my fists against your

Ribs and begging you to recall

Another world

A different day

A dawn so bright and nimble

That we could eat it like

Ice cream and not even

Get sick.

The sun sets, the shop windows go dark

And you are there

The boy with the bread

The boy with aces up his sleeves

The boy with good intentions

And bad luck.

Love is slash and burn.

At least, that’s what I tell you--

Just before I push your head underwater.