winter witchings

we watch dark from behind your window, a pane of ice
(be still)
our long hands reach for your love light
(be still)
warm red heart, your mouth is a tart
you're forgetting our language
we left it on your lips
your breath becomes white fog flowers
peering out trying
to discern shapes from a forever expanse
of snow

the nethercats

more dreams of telepathic black cats. we move in stride. she is always beside me and below me, like the real meaning of the passage you read wrapped in a pair of inky parentheses. a footnote for the real seekers. subtle, otherworldly, and succinct.

in real life, i see them out of the corners of my eyes, the nethercats. they sleep under my car, no matter how many times i change vehicles or move homes. i find pawprints left like love letters on my windshield, see their mirrored eyes curious in the dark.

musical chairs

the girl and i regard each other from our places in the room. she has been watching me far longer than i've been aware. she smirks at me grey eyed from her victorian armchair, rococo pink like easter eggs. my alarm rings. i look behind me to find the sound coming from a grandfather clock with a useless face, hands pointing to sigils instead of digits. it's chaos o'clock. i look back and she has advanced like a chess piece on an oversized board, her chair moved suddenly towards me with not even a whisper of taffeta or a skid of furniture on floor. she is surrounded now by a deranged tea party, a page from a demented story book. mangy blind rodents tightrope across her shoulders, their feet catching in her decayed apron straps. toad footmen in waistcoats look on from moldy doily lily pads in the wingback balconies, unamused. unnamed shadow and fur masked creatures cavort perversely at her feet, and she strokes the forehead of the march hare, sitting beside her with his teacup poised for a sip. my alarm rings again. they do not like this. the chair thrusts forward forcefully, now cornering me. the room grows as i shrink, surrendering to wonderland. i can see now the violet outline of her irises, paintbrush strokes on fine china. her smug set mouth is pink taffy pitch. she's the kind who doesn't mind staining her dress. i keep hitting snooze.

vinyl

i've always said the albums i like best are not the catchy ones. no, no, no. not the immediate ones. you know the ones i mean, the ones that get stuck in your head for days, months even. the ones stuck on repeat because they're easily lovable. those are fun, but not my strange kind.

i prefer the difficult ones. those that take a few listens to grow on you. the ones maybe were even turned off in the middle because it was too much right then to process. but then later you catch yourself humming as you go about your day, or even dream a few lovely bars, waking up thinking you composed it, then realize you didn't. "i've heard this one before." it may take a minute to place it. you get it. and then before you know it, you've tumbled face first into adoration for its concept, its rhythms. you listen completely open and learn all of its words, stunned by its brilliance more at each listen than the time before. everything else gets blown out of your mind. the other music you've listened to prior seems silly and ill-composed and vapid. maybe you try out a few other records but the needle doesn't fit right. they don't warble in the same places or have the same static pop and hiss, or that last note before silence that leaves you wanting to listen all over again from the intro. the records you listened to when you were younger are still dear to you but you've outgrown them. you're haunted. try as you might you'll never be the same. there's no pretending you didn't hear it, being that you are forever changed.

sometimes i must admit, i starve myself of music for days, weeks. imagining it with my eyes closed, the fullness of this note, the hardness of that. i follow the falls and lifts by memory, punctuated by the odd skip, the scars and flaws i also prefer, those are savored as much in the dark as the perfections. i deny myself the pleasure so much that my teeth ache from longing to hear the real thing. ache to bite into a favorite song as if it had skin, as if it could pretend to resist before flooding me ten times sharper.

when the needle fits the groove, oh. to scratch that itch. to fill inner with outer, to bring it inside, and keep it there pulsing, to seize it, pick it apart, devour it, put it back together again. to feel it radiate through your entirety, and just when it can't possibly get any better it does. with each beat light washes out my head and i'm filled to the brim, humming along, throat clenched and forgetting to breathe, although somehow keeping perfect time. i run my fingertips over invisible lyrics like braille, pretending. i have to force my toes to uncurl so i can walk again. yeah, yeah, yeah.