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.