I wanted to hear what was boiling inside you long before we met
it was a cold night but that doesn’t matter now I
had images of seascapes and the darkest skies
taped up in my mind of the stories you tell me
and those you tell yourself
what’s real is the absence
and the great forgetting
There is no undoing
smog sits heavy eighteen hours east
I wish I’d been on that plane
I wish I’d gone blind that day
got caught up in the newest wave
and I drank each word the the greatest pleasure
and they’re still in me even now
We saw the moon through the buildings scraping upward in the palm of a hallucination you smiled and I was wrong to see it I don’t know who you are blood and eyes and bone and intentions unknown
When I woke up I was miles away I walked back anyway and I never relate people are dying all around me and I’ve just got this small heart pain I wish I’d been on that plane there’s no more pull and I feel gunshots in my head like benign firecrackers just let go before it gets dangerous We looked up at the clouded universe barely touching I’d have stayed if it was real I wish I’d gone blind that day
Rachel Browne 