and still i persist, ten/rose, pg-13
Trying my hand at a challenge again...finally! For Kitkat and Mel, as always.
and still i persist, ten/rose, pg-13
|
One day in London,
you go walking.
Rose, towheaded and flushed with cold,
presses close to your side like
a vine frames a window, or
like a shadow.
Her voice is thin and sharp
--a needle, a knife--
as she says:
"When I'm gone, I'll be a ghost,"
and because it's true,
You frown.
"Well," you respond, the wind heavy at your back
clouds gathering in the sky
(a storm is coming)
"At least I'll get to keep you."
A clap of thunder; she laughs.
The rain begins to fall, first in
delicate arrows
then in longer strands of
silver, flashing light.
In the downpour, she is glorious.
Soaked to the shivering skin.
Her hand winds through your own
finger against finger
pulse beating warm
little messages into your wrist.
"I'll be like Casper," she decides
and lays her head on your shoulder.
Not quite, is what you do not say
She would not be a friendly spirit,
a benevolent gift.
With hollow eyes and gauzy skin
she would be one more condemnation
crowding your magic blue box
which is already full of people you can't let go.
Bigger on the inside;
but not big enough.
Rose would drown under the ocean
of your regrets.
Walk the halls of your home
like a widow of the sea
looking for a lighthouse beam
to split the darkness in half
and carry her away.
You don't want to share this ugly future with her
because it's a Tuesday and there are chips
and you can already taste the salt of her thumb on your lips
as she feeds you.
It's London. She is alive.
Tomorrow is yesterday and it has not yet come
This is the benefit of a time machine.
"Like Casper," you echo, and let her keep
her illusions.
It is not the first lie you will have ever told
your Rose.
|
Her lips are hot against yours
burning like the scrape
of a matchstick lit;
there is a tiny flame
in the pocket of her mouth and
you put it out by kissing her.
All little boys
(even Time Lords)
want to be firefighters in their own fashion.
Or heroes of some kind.
And, really:
If you could breathe life into her
you would
at every turn.
But you think,
as she gasps into your neck
her hips nestled in your hands,
that you are feeding her death
instead.
"Oh," she sobs. "More."
Gluttony is a sin, but you feed her.
You're starving, yourself
and you take a bite
of her delicate veins
mapping her heartbeats
with the trace of your tongue.
There will be a day that you
cannot remember
whether she tastes like
moonlight or girl.
So you catch her mouth again,
and make a vow
to write down her recipe.
|
All that's left in the end
is the silence
of white walls
and the scuff from her trainers
as she fought to stay.
|
Bazoolium and blue sweaters
an army of--
you can't even say the word.
She's gone.
|
You visit Woman Wept once more
after cycling back to various points
of your own timeline
and risking the complete collapse
of the universe as you know it
just for a glimpse
of her legs left bare in her school skirt
as she skivved off classes
to smoke in the doorway
of her neighbor's flat.
She was fifteen, then twelve, then sixteen and crying
over a boy named Jimmy.
You look into the distance
at a spire of water that has
inexplicably hardened into something cold and fragile.
Once, the ocean and the lakes of this world were as malleable as silk.
Now, everything is cast in the shell of time,
a statue to be admired, a monument to grief.
You have become frozen
the way this planet has.
There's this image of her in your dreams;
(and you've never dreamt before now
images soaked in color
saturated with emotion
so that your chest expands with it, breathing it down
like a volatile thing)
She is walking down the road
at night, and there is the dull
orange glow of streetlights
in her hair.
Her scarf loops around her neck, her sleeves falling over
her fingertips, her skirt
falling to her feet.
She looks impossibly small.
And you think of picking her up
in the cup of your hands
depositing her in a jar
labeled my third heart
and without whimsy
putting her on a shelf
where she could not ever fade away.
You realize
that you can't.
You realize that you
can't see her face.
Details are slipping away
and you are desperate to
remember.
But this is
the transience of life
how lovers become
strangers.
You love humans for their very way
of picking up
and moving on.
But you are not human
and there is no one to
help fool you into thinking
otherwise, this time.
The wave overhead shimmers
as you struggle to catch the outline
of her form in the panels
under which you both,
enjoined,
once stood.
The stars give you no answers.
You set your machine to 1987 and
pray for no
paradoxes.
|
The burden you bear
is that you will live forever
into eons, into infinity
until your bones fall into ashes
that rise again.
You will ache with the need to sleep
and still you will live
and lose
and love
and lose.
By now you know also that
she, too, will live forever
a dust mote sparkling
in empty rooms
a fine layer of frost,
every winter on every planet
you ever visit, ever again.
Her name will sit
in your brain. Patiently
meditating on its own importance.
You're either too clever
or not clever enough
to be scared anymore.
Everything comes to an end, but
circles don't.
You close your eyes and she turns
around and around and around
in your head.
|
and still i persist, ten/rose, pg-13
|
One day in London,
you go walking.
Rose, towheaded and flushed with cold,
presses close to your side like
a vine frames a window, or
like a shadow.
Her voice is thin and sharp
--a needle, a knife--
as she says:
"When I'm gone, I'll be a ghost,"
and because it's true,
You frown.
"Well," you respond, the wind heavy at your back
clouds gathering in the sky
(a storm is coming)
"At least I'll get to keep you."
A clap of thunder; she laughs.
The rain begins to fall, first in
delicate arrows
then in longer strands of
silver, flashing light.
In the downpour, she is glorious.
Soaked to the shivering skin.
Her hand winds through your own
finger against finger
pulse beating warm
little messages into your wrist.
"I'll be like Casper," she decides
and lays her head on your shoulder.
Not quite, is what you do not say
She would not be a friendly spirit,
a benevolent gift.
With hollow eyes and gauzy skin
she would be one more condemnation
crowding your magic blue box
which is already full of people you can't let go.
Bigger on the inside;
but not big enough.
Rose would drown under the ocean
of your regrets.
Walk the halls of your home
like a widow of the sea
looking for a lighthouse beam
to split the darkness in half
and carry her away.
You don't want to share this ugly future with her
because it's a Tuesday and there are chips
and you can already taste the salt of her thumb on your lips
as she feeds you.
It's London. She is alive.
Tomorrow is yesterday and it has not yet come
This is the benefit of a time machine.
"Like Casper," you echo, and let her keep
her illusions.
It is not the first lie you will have ever told
your Rose.
|
Her lips are hot against yours
burning like the scrape
of a matchstick lit;
there is a tiny flame
in the pocket of her mouth and
you put it out by kissing her.
All little boys
(even Time Lords)
want to be firefighters in their own fashion.
Or heroes of some kind.
And, really:
If you could breathe life into her
you would
at every turn.
But you think,
as she gasps into your neck
her hips nestled in your hands,
that you are feeding her death
instead.
"Oh," she sobs. "More."
Gluttony is a sin, but you feed her.
You're starving, yourself
and you take a bite
of her delicate veins
mapping her heartbeats
with the trace of your tongue.
There will be a day that you
cannot remember
whether she tastes like
moonlight or girl.
So you catch her mouth again,
and make a vow
to write down her recipe.
|
All that's left in the end
is the silence
of white walls
and the scuff from her trainers
as she fought to stay.
|
Bazoolium and blue sweaters
an army of--
you can't even say the word.
She's gone.
|
You visit Woman Wept once more
after cycling back to various points
of your own timeline
and risking the complete collapse
of the universe as you know it
just for a glimpse
of her legs left bare in her school skirt
as she skivved off classes
to smoke in the doorway
of her neighbor's flat.
She was fifteen, then twelve, then sixteen and crying
over a boy named Jimmy.
You look into the distance
at a spire of water that has
inexplicably hardened into something cold and fragile.
Once, the ocean and the lakes of this world were as malleable as silk.
Now, everything is cast in the shell of time,
a statue to be admired, a monument to grief.
You have become frozen
the way this planet has.
There's this image of her in your dreams;
(and you've never dreamt before now
images soaked in color
saturated with emotion
so that your chest expands with it, breathing it down
like a volatile thing)
She is walking down the road
at night, and there is the dull
orange glow of streetlights
in her hair.
Her scarf loops around her neck, her sleeves falling over
her fingertips, her skirt
falling to her feet.
She looks impossibly small.
And you think of picking her up
in the cup of your hands
depositing her in a jar
labeled my third heart
and without whimsy
putting her on a shelf
where she could not ever fade away.
You realize
that you can't.
You realize that you
can't see her face.
Details are slipping away
and you are desperate to
remember.
But this is
the transience of life
how lovers become
strangers.
You love humans for their very way
of picking up
and moving on.
But you are not human
and there is no one to
help fool you into thinking
otherwise, this time.
The wave overhead shimmers
as you struggle to catch the outline
of her form in the panels
under which you both,
enjoined,
once stood.
The stars give you no answers.
You set your machine to 1987 and
pray for no
paradoxes.
|
The burden you bear
is that you will live forever
into eons, into infinity
until your bones fall into ashes
that rise again.
You will ache with the need to sleep
and still you will live
and lose
and love
and lose.
By now you know also that
she, too, will live forever
a dust mote sparkling
in empty rooms
a fine layer of frost,
every winter on every planet
you ever visit, ever again.
Her name will sit
in your brain. Patiently
meditating on its own importance.
You're either too clever
or not clever enough
to be scared anymore.
Everything comes to an end, but
circles don't.
You close your eyes and she turns
around and around and around
in your head.
|