Anthology of dreams (drownedinwords) wrote, @ 2005-01-07 22:39:00

Awake in other bedrooms

Still wearing the outfit from the ritz;
The suit, crumbled against
my shoulder like first love,
The tie, stained and knotted;
trying to avoid the realisation
of how odd I look
in unfamiliar mirrors.

In a place where none of the
footsteps feel right in your ears
and every doorhandle's whisper
sends the guest in you scuttling
to hide under covers
someone else knew in infancy.

It would drive anyone to drink
to rise slowly in the moonlight
through these shattered panes
as though displacement could
take you home.

And then the morning
stalking through dead leaves
with all the things
unsayable in daylight
sticking to our shoes.

The tours of other people's schools.
All the names listed with some
insular pride;
walls of bodies screwed into
the fabric of the place
into all the minds it mothers.

Such a thing could not be healthy,
even were it mine.
No matter how the sun talks
to the wind at this height
or how many bricks are wedged together here.

Even to my visiting eyes,
these foreign sites are a distortion,
and they swell in your mind
like clouds

and your knees grow weak
and so you flee these places
before you lose the light again
and you are drawn in by all the
little things the nights require.