Midnight Ride to Heaven

I read your latest novel, a debut of somewhat, a heartbreaking piece, held by commas and stitched together perfectly, by the murky waters of Mayflower, near the place I laid to rest, not far from the golf course where I feed swans with considerable handfuls of wheat and go reguarly to reminisce about the past, and the times when I would follow the dark glow, diving into deep blues. It didn't take long before I found myself lost in the book, in your vibrant words, and it was fascinating how time flowed like a river made of wine, how you spoke candidly about being on the stage in front of a mute audience, how terrifying it must have been, and how I related with your magnetic poetry, regardless of how different we are, and how it coursed through me like a feeling I had never discovered or felt before. At first I thought it was happiness, since it's been a while since I've felt such a thing, but I had mistaken what arose in me for something peaceful, almost a numbness, uncontrolled and simmering at my bitten ankles. I was empty, and the funny thing was I couldn't stop myself from going forward, eager to release what I was hosting, I broke out into a spell of emotions, multiple bodies. I turned over the page, delighted in my quest to discover what you called madness, a universe in my hands, and I was paralysed in my step, staring at years of toil, with 500 ml of cow's milk in one hand, and a freshly printed newspaper neatly tucked under my other arm.

Later that same day, when it had started to rain, I had an incredible desire to free myself from my mundane business, and I was urged to finish what I had started. I had unhooked the phone and deserted my responsibilities, and headed for the sacred place I had left you, there in your glory, and I passed a rough amount of cars travelling to their final destinations, some people with face masks, and some not, but before I got there, to that dead end, the terminus in paradise, I stopped at the local convenience store and supplied myself with a cold refreshment, which was much needed, and my trousers were tight enough that you could see the outline of the coins I had leftover in my swollen pocket.    

My hair was getting wetter with each row of houses I passed, and through each invisible gateway I went I was like dew, in that blue vapour lightly moving like a sea. The overgrowing vines on the unkempt pathway lead me to your grave, your resting place, that tranquil silence where I had buried the burden of living with a depression so deep it makes me want to find the tallest building so I can scream, fuck the world and everyone in it.

By then the peaceful thoughts had left. They had been replaced with more capricious ones, dangerous delusions, and at that time I was so selfish I thought to myself, if I can't be happy then you can't, I'll kill you with spite, in that stubborn moment a hundred suicides crossed my mind, and I couldn't break from it. It was like I had kissed the flame of desire, like I had crossed the road. I calmed down and remembered I have a home, somewhere to go each night when it gets cold, and even though it's far from perfect, like I would want it to be, I make the most of it because I don't have any other choice, because there are people out there in impossible situations with no magic in their eyes. 

It was as if the fire had dulled my voice, but I kept telling myself, over and over, you'll be fine, don't worry, there's no need to stress out over the things you can't control, things will get better, it's been worse, things will come together, and suddenly the view became clearer, like an eye, as if the rain had dried up and a rainbow hung over my shadow, where I was sat, under those disturbed chemtrails with my public erection. Bats were flying above my head.  

I seen the sadness in strangers. Planes coming. If I'm not back by the morning then don't wait for the candles in dark hallways to fade. I'll be back, I promised, and said, If I'm not, you'll find me in the garden in Heaven, playing with angels.  

I hadn't had a cigarette since I left at nine, into the drone, and before that I was in a frantic daze, wondering what was going to happen... The taxi slowed down. I got out and gave the man a smile, rushed by the afternoon traffic, ten minutes from going mad. I stopped in at my favourite bookshop and bought myself a couple of hardbacks. Spent two hundred pounds in those ploughed trenches, but it was better than crying in my birthday cake in the summer of my childhood.

I burned the photographs of my inglorious blood relatives, and watched them turn to moondust, then swallowed rivers, and punched craters into planets I orbit. It was all smoke and mirrors. I watched the sun set from the purple hill in the west with bruises on my knees, and released waxy tears for every failed nostrum, convinced I was diamond. More like hazel and plum. I made grapevines out of them, I drink them, as if my tears are precious oceans where the spoor ends. I've danced with frequent bouts of illness, inflections out of nowhere, married to the road not taken, and visited states of wonder. 

Using my compass I made it to the edge. This isn't my first time down the mine. I've been here before, and it has taken every last ounce of strength I have to return with my brains. In Washington I seen the riots, a thousand voices wanting to be heard in one small square you could barely see through. Reactions were feathered calligraphy. Motionless trees, budding roses. Relieved, I breathed. Ushered my innards to speak up. They were rifts of ice, at the mercy of constellations. Gazing aimlessly at nothing. I am taciturn in my bedroom. Electric currents swim through my veins like blood, like elastic bands, wishes perhaps, or guffaws. The backwash in my palms. I flicked the ash into the skull of a deer, and succumbed, and cleaved to this poem like honeysuckle in a predicament. Polishing my ceramic insides, my ceramic interior. I will give you my liver as a postcard and you can put it in a frame, next to a painting of a magpie in flight, a vase in the living room. 

Maybe I have high expectations of people, or everyone is letting me down. Watching me as I drown in your punctuation, in solid matter, in answers.

Vibrations echo through the atrium, through my footsteps, through my glass windows, through the ruins of my imagination. I don't know how I did it. Living through the years like an antique or a twinkle in the stars. Living through a babel of drunken voices all fighting to be the loudest. I'm tired. My fangs have pierced dream films, math equations, science I barely understand. I come to the surface to breathe but hands are pulling me under. Something is telling me the pleasure won't last. I'm certain like my sexuality. On a carousel, living by my own laws, rules I've made to break. Disintegrating like snowflakes. 

Wait for me where the night ends and day begins, where I left my body and soul shining and you told me we'd meet again, where the music plays. I have prepared a beach for us. Let's kiss until no one exists. Let's be together forever and do what feels good. Have sex all day. Passionate lovemaking. I'm sick of overthinking every knee jerk, in the third person singular present tense. I want to uncoil in your snake mouth and get caught on your hook. I will milk your stone, and do what I need to do. I imagine there's nothing that can ameliorate my sorrow, vertical in its inauguration, between the embers scattered like autumn foliage. The last time I was august I was embellished with hubris on the rostrum, but rootless, cutting roses from among the stars. I had pawned my prized possessions. Life forms and goldcrest. Trying to find my balance.

I stumbled onto the Poconos, and fell from aeroplane heights I acknowledged, into dimensions I never knew of. Wanting him to save me from this Hell I'm in, but he never did. He left me stranded in perpetual darkness, wishing things were different. I had stuck out my tongue, called him Sir. Breathed him in like air. In my wildest dreams our bodies were wrapped around each other. In dirty bed sheets, in unknown streets. I won't stop for the rain, or anyone, I simply go on. Living in slow motion. I am a breeze on the highway. A wisp of smoke by the milky horizon. The morning sky is pink. Finished the renovations. In my torture chamber nothing good ever happens here. No longer do I hear plush songs with a lustre. I hear black screams in the wet cave of my peachy soul tolling the bells in me. Lights flickering for the tiger nurses by the lemon tree. 

I tied a ribbon to the rhyme in my head and my heart. Filling in the awkward silences with memories that will last an earthquake. Water over the tidal causeway. I have nothing left to give. You took my sanity and replaced it with sadness. The same sadness I see linger in strangers, I see in myself. I am a reflection in a pool, a cork on the Champagne bottle, holding everything inside. Holding the knotwork, the crushed coffee beans, beaten stones, broken bones, my hot ear at the oracle. Purring like the needle through the kitsch. A man coughed in front of me and I was rather alarmed, because you know, there's a virus going around, and I'm never slowing down. I'm throwing arbitrary obscenities at the moon, welted with the silver of the blade. I've met my waterloo, that bastard. Paying for my kicks, and living for my kinks.