words

planes coerce the clouds glowing and fading
like fireflies the size of distant planets
and her shadow mimics everything
on the wall behind the bed
like a cauterized copy given to
by the blue diffused light of the television.

though your body is close you are elsewhere
as if your parts are halved by some thought
whose origins i can never be made known to
and what goes unsaid cascades about us
like a waterfall and it is thunderous this silence,
god the silence is a razor cutting through everything.

the lamplight here burns orange
and through the blinds of your window
it appears the world is afire
with similar moments as this
from flames that do not dance nor writhe
but simply burn and burn for ever.

in your bed i watch fanblades revolve
around a gilded heart like a machinated sun
reflecting the turning of my insides,
all gears and teeth and pivot and pattern,
the endless circle of things
and the early dark ensues
and evokes in me a strange poet of pale gloom
while beside me your hair is chaotic
and your skin is electric
and your sheets cover the floor
and your eyes suffocate me.

a long sheer of light spills through
from the balcony and it paints the walls
with nameless and thin shadows
like personified spiders conforming to our fears,
language replaced by our beating hearts and panting breath,
alive in here, safe from the world outside your room.

-S.C. Martinez