The night bus is packed to the gills. I thought I felt your hand on the small of my back and I felt just as full for a moment, but it was a stranger passing by. No one would know that you and I were anything more than strangers. The coldness of the night seeps in through my ribs despite the bus being stuffy and overheated, windows fogged with the whisky breath of 3am's rowdy hoardes. It's as loud as a school excursion but you face the other way, silent, gripping the pole.
I am waiting to be treasured by you again. To be hated. To rouse some sort of emotion as I slam the door and clap down the stairs away from your flat, to hear you following after, wrestling on a jumper, saying wait. I hate that I have to leave to convince you that you want me to stay.
Do you pour the same poems down the necks of every lover that you’ve known? Forget the fucking Richard Siken. I want to see you bleed; drag your heart against the rocks like I do. You love the song, you love the poem, you love the idea. Maybe you even love me, theoretically. Maybe.
The history in this city is cloying. I am sick of monuments to dead things.
By now you may have guessed: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, take me to your leaders. Even I - unused to your ways though I am - would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them.
Instead I will say, take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths
These are worth it. These are what I have come for.
Instead I will say, take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths
These are worth it. These are what I have come for.