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.
