It was never free

Awaken to the whispers
Of time –

whispers of a story
of an azure sarcophagus
of silent beauty rivalling
the notes I heard that day &

I tell mother I’ll come later than the sun
Set
because today is a day
worth setting in stone
& i see your face again
as we walk
towards that tree again
and i wonder if the piece will end
like the night closing in on me
— like that darkness when you leave,
if it will end the same again:
and disappear
or come back and spill
like the nectar you gave me
when we came down from that mountain
& i looked at the edges of that pearly lake and
felt like maybe
i understood what it meant
to listen to silence &
listen to that country
where the birds sang of a new height
in my soul
and that i don’t want to forget
but i want to forget you
because when they told me
que j’ai le coeur sur la main
i didn’t think i’d get a coeur d’artichaut
and i want
to take back
all those dried leaves
lest they burn
like the embers
that scalped my foot
and taught me
for the first time
what true pain
felt like

and i looked you in the eye
and cursed
the sunken pharaoh
who brought me
here again &

i cursed until the chords stopped
& i felt the shaky pendulum inside
beat slower so I gazed
into the tomb
and I looked into those
decrepit eyes and saw a reflection –
of times I won’t forget –
that brought me to the sky and from the sky
onto an ancient world
of celestial breath
infusing life & a whiff of muted pain
a sweet pain
that made memories &
memories into visions & visions into you into this into a moment & a moment into — you.

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