Sunday, August 3, 2008

if i kiss you where it's sore

when they kitchen sink your back, replant the volume inside unfamiliar music, and set a pack of dogs to sleep around you like flames, there will be no loss of emotion in you. your feet have memorized the steps, even if your head cannot keep up. you are a stronghold. there is a man in the boiler room, red faced and sweating, who keeps it all moving. his fingers are the size of staplers. his chest is a cardboard box. his biceps are the bulging roots of an oak tree. he pushes and pulls, burns his hands, and billows the fires to grow mountains, to engineer car crashes, to burst a small cloud into ten thousand raindrops, to bring my thumbs up to brush away your tears. you remind me of an old song i used to know, the way you get stuck in my head. i find myself humming the melody of your lips. it's the prettiest tune i know.