anniversarie

[we mistook them for tigers]
your carefully curated collection of dying things lay atop the embroidered tablecloth. some cake. a key. a bar of soap, parceled in its flawless paper. the objects seemed estranged, seemed to stand at attention, all arbitrary and ceremonial. with a singularly vacuous disposition they each exuded a macabre sheen. the scene sang of unattainable fields. of newly extinguished growth. of church bells knelling and overcast eyes. of thyme. a scent of exquisite soap and fine deterioration

[wildflower]
she possessed a gorgeous sense of ruin about her -- a distraught, endangered way of being beautiful -- a savage misery in her laugh that made her untouchable and altogether irresistible. she was a masterpiece, a goddess cobbled together from bones and teeth

[sincere forms of flattery]
lay them out. spread them wide. freeze them, frame them and paint their cheeks. pin them down, oh lick their bones. stand back. behold your breathless lover -- we shared a passion for still life and wild, wounded things -- a talent for counterfeit, you majored in being phony; graduated with a fake degree -- you suffer a predilection for moonlit walks, angel wings, aestheticism and anatomy

[mutandis]
"everything," she explained, "is a form of self-preservation." her crafts came to life and nibbled her away, but she didn't mind. she considered herself a living sacrifice and everything else a potential offering. another addition to her collection. another stab at eternity. another carved out heart to dissect and display

[fossil figures]
you only admire those dead people that make you laugh; poets, painters in paper graves. you dig them up and play their sighs. their inventions adorn your fingers -- invitations, lustering of the mind. the flowers glisten with some sacred sheen as the lilies listened to us slow dancing to a silly tune. our bodies shifted slowly, my hand attending your back like a funeral -- like some dismal, desolate tea party

[postpartum]
hotels and hospitals reek of impermanence; no matter how grand or comfortable, no one ever stays. our apartment is a cross with no one waiting to be rescued, no one to save. disasters used to be so rare. now each day is an earthquake, a tidal wave trembling in our skin. we framed ourselves in glass and pinned us to a wall, but it didn't help. we didn't last. it didn't help at all

[holocene]
the moon exalted its long, dim, flawful face. its gray, stately glow seemed almost magnetic -- metallic somehow. the strange sky mesmerized us with its inscrutable hue; a hoarse, unflappable shade of ice and fog. the weeds and gravel choreographed themselves into an arid, barren tableau. and i thought of you. the blank looks and bleak stares. a page, a polaroid and butterfly wings. bits of your language that i now speak. your pallid obsessions are constant reminders; no, nothing ever stays