prepari
2019-03-05

***

tell me a story, midnight hands:
from whence you came?
and how did it feel
when you shattered the sky
intent on beginning again?

your decisions I rue
my judgement is marked false
and you laugh at me now
and ignore all my pained calls

who was I ever, anyway?
just a sick puppet in the back rows
while you danced on stage
an architect to both of our destructions

so many nights, I lulled myself to sleep with dreams
of being in a hospital bed, succumbed to the mercy of the knife
my brain, with thoughts of a better future rife
and a home near a lake where underneath bubbles teem

midnight hands, instead of your customary way,
there's something to you that I need to say.

the muses pull me to cleave the night
and leave this world unseen,
but my work on this coil is not yet complete
I thus mar my hands unclean

to disappear, to forget, to bathe in the waters of Lethe
but not everything in this damn world is as it seems
five years of construction, undone by a night's drunken folly
but already I've exhausted my long-deserved sorrys

for what can you do when you're chained up on stage
and whipped until the whole ocean's your grave?
naught left to do but disappear into the foam
and hope that whatever lingers above deems you worthy to roam

"Why do you pain me so?"

you have the gall to take my hand,
to intertwine your fingers in mine,
as I sit here alone in my room

your head on my shoulder,
your arm against mine,
as you await my impending doom

"Did you think, for a second, I'd let you down?
Take this cloak,
take my hand,
lest you fall to the ground.
I love you; I'll hide you as long as you need.
It's the least I can do so that we both can succeed."

I wait with bated breath.

the wind howls outside
and I remember- we stepped out into the night,
armed with the poisons of our fathers
and the weight of the world on our shoulders

you don't know who I am.
but then again, has anybody?

the frost on the ground,
crunching underfoot as lamp posts stretch out our shadows
without a single sound
resisting the urge to keep our heads low

not going gentle into that good night,
always you and I, the dark and the light

***

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander