"I know the feeling of it stealing life out from under me."
The lyrics played on softly in the background,
In a place and time where I am not entirely sure I was.
Jon Bunch crooned on about I noticed not what.
For I was in a time that had slipped right through the gaps of my fingers like sand;
The clinging grains a reminder of a regret I probably should have.
But the flickering flames of lessons learnt melt away any lingering doubts.
I see your face, and your face, and your face,
Here and yet not here, as I reach for it...
Smoke dissipating at my touch.
Reality is merely an illusion, a figment of one's imagination;
Or is it?
A howl echoes through the distance,
Echoing again, only closer.
The wind is deafening.
Her tears of woe kiss the parched ground vengefully.
One, and two, and three, and never pausing for a sob
She lets them fall.
Fall into the embracing limbs of some ground
To make love so sweet that the clock stops
Ticking for a moment
As my lungs consume
Greedily, hungrily, lustfully,
The balmy innocence that lingered on
In the cradling arms of the roaring air
Of that sultry night.
Of this sultry night, that caresses me like a lover would,
I can say that such revelations are tabooed.
Tabooed for a reason.
Men must not ever bare their souls,
Honest and pure as the dark night skies.
For even the night skies are only so grim when the clouds come gathering,
And hide from vision that which lies beyond.
The silver maiden sheds light unto these dangerous intentions.
The ever glorious, pearly Moon,
So pious, untainted, utterly unblemished,
Has secrets of her own.
A shadow falls across her worship-worthy face,
Reflecting for us mortals the price of chastity.
And what indeed it is!
Righteousness is punished fairly when the honest are made part
Of the crimes being committed;
Sworn to keeping their tongues tied;
Drowning with every breathe they draw, their very life a noose
Around their necks
That kills a piece of them at a time till there is none left.
And so the Moon, dear darling Moon,
Glides across the heavens,
Burdened with the wretched crimes of all that reside behind that curtain of clouds,
Sentenced to an eternity of silence,
Watching as the immortal fall from their grandeur,
And as the mortal crawl upon this speck of dust that we are.
Dust thou art, to dust returnest...
A line resounds in the empty trenches of my mind
From the most truthful of verses I have ever laid my eyes upon.
The mud is moist, of course,
And soft, almost velvety.
The grass blades spring back to their alert form
Once my feet no longer share their heaviness with them.
I lick my lips and taste
Saccharine and saline.
Tears.
Of the wind and of the fire within.
I take forth another step.
And another. Almost
There now.
Water drips from my finger tips,
From errant locks of hair,
From my proud chin that juts out in challenge.
Water, she...
She says that she likes how I feel
Against her,
Under her. She wants me
To stay.
She travels along the curve of my spine,
Pauses at the small of my back,
And then moves along.
She says that she wants me,
To stay.
But Fire is a jealous mistress,
You see.
She wants me too,
To stay.
And refuse I can
Not. I can refuse my lady
Not!
Mistress says that she is a part of me, as am I of her.
She says that
She resides within me
Like my own heart;
Every beat of my own is a flicker of hers.
She takes not kindly
To these affections and infatuations with anybody
But herself.
She wants me, and she says so.
Seething, searing, scorching, singeing, smiling
As she says so.
She rises from her seat, and touches my bosom gently.
I feel her burning
Inside of me. She is alive
In my heart. I can
Not refuse her, but I want to.
So, I try
To steal myself back and away.
I decide
To let water take me
As her lover. I decide to let water save me from my mistress.
I let Moon bear witness to my selfishness,
And let wind carry the message forth for the dawn,
That when they found me in the first rays of the sun
That morning
I had finally escaped my lady,
I had finally found a lover true.
A lover that sought me out
And brought me joy,
Regardless of the cost.
A lover that vowed to always
Set me free.
And she did.
As I splashed another cup of chilling water against my sullen face.
I looked up and saw us united,
And then she fell away, like a lover scorned.
Like a bridge I had burned in another life.
Perhaps,
I had.
I touched my lips and saw them dance to the memory of those words.
They whispered to me ever so silently,
"I know the feeling of it stealing life out from under me."
