some days i think id like to eat the universe. by smallsincerities, literature
Literature
some days i think id like to eat the universe.
pass the stardust, darling.
there is never enough flavour for this greedy palate,
tongue sponging across the acrid surfaces-
not every world is as green as ours, of course.
somehow, everything you touch
ends up tasting
vaguely
like dust & ashes.
(we've had them before, of course.
the skeletons of our demons were strangely...
satisfying.)
you whispered late one night
that maybe i shouldn't be here.
maybe i shouldn't be.
even if i was,
i was probably born in the wrong skin,
anyway.
now that i think about it,
it makes sense.
i always did want to taste the nebulae,
& drink the souls of the dead.
it would probably lower the number of ghost
I loved her like the flaws in barbed wire;
it stung. & I needed to take her castle ribs-
but I was jealous of heaven.
She spoke through her bones.
She: a beautiful decay
draped along my apartment,
& the mess of my mouth.
When she left,
I cried big ugly tears
for the First Aid of her
heartbeats
I needed Draco.
I needed her.
“Is it sweet?” She meows even still
with all my self-doubt.
This thing, I must not feed it-
As I still long to leave galaxies
along the length of her entire bed.
sitting on the roof with the ghosts
like so many feathers rippling soft over my shoulders.
i'd like the sun to set but we are not there yet.
thinking: why do we sit on roofs
hungry for night to fall.
thinking: if i loved her
did that make it ok.
sitting on the roof with my secrets,
ok or not ok, thinking about definitions.
about "discourse", how it shapes.
thinking about the unsayable,
the clamp over my teeth,
something i cannot write down or transcribe
phonetically or draw or scribble or bear-
thinking about hands. about "no"
and silence. thinking about definitions.
sitting on the roof watching that face,
that pale bird, with her blame
burning chest, aching knuckles
every breath and every pain, and i am alive
its too hot, i'm too hungry, and im too tired
and i sigh in relief. im awake, and i know this is living
I sit at the hearth, in some rat filled tavern. I drown my sorrows in the vinegar that the man behind the bar dares to call wine. I am numb to the world. The tides sings in my veins but I ignore it. Another night passes and I have not moved from my seat. People in the room stare furtively through the hearth smoke, and whisper that I am not of this world. The barman keeps them from me for the moment, for he is well paid in forgotten coins. My reverie is interrupted by a sailor, the wine heavy on his breath. He suggests obscenity and I ignore him. He reaches for my arm and I flee the tavern, his face a picture of shock at my dissolution. I seek
Make me hotter than the mantle of the Earth,
and paint my skin with burnt-out charcoal.
Make my organs feel like fireflies.
Burn my tongue with your white-hot passion
and then kiss away the burns on every limb,
with lips that tickle like forest fires .
Make our sweat feel like dewdrops,
that come with the sunrise, spilt like crimson wine.
Light the sky on fire,
and we'll burn it down to the last glowing embers
amongst trilobite fossil clouds.
Inhale this smoke,
my hot breath on your lips and neck.
Let me asphyxiate you with fiery eyes
and kisses that take both of our breath away.
Leaving our chests rising
like anxious butte
being fifteen is
a lot like being stuck
at a red with no one
at the intersection
except for you.
you know that if you
apply enough pressure
to the pedal underfoot,
you will propel
across the intersection
and carry onwards
uninhibited,
but all your life,
(the brief flicker it has been)
they have told you
red means stop,
green means go, and you
need to wait your turn
like everyone else,
it is the way things work,
and you shouldn’t ask why.
still,
you fear that,
when the light finally
switches over to green,
it will be too late
to do all of the things
you were waiting for
in the first place.
The world was warm when I was born.
A big, wet-warm world,
and I was small.
Mom told me I’d grow
into it, but maybe
it was wishful thinking or maybe
I fell short.
It was cold sometimes, and wet,
and it rained down on me
and I yelled sometimes (or wanted to),
tried not to cry sometimes (but always did).
But I was warm.
Used to press my hands on my mouth,
cold hands (he said warm heart)
to keep it in.
I was a well-kept secret,
stones along the bottom of the river.
Had crazy eyes, you know,
but damn it, I kept warm.
~~~
They say it’s hot out there
but I’m cold
freezing like I never was.
Grandpa took me swimming
in De