funeralsauce:

at night, i think about their eyes, three floors below my apartment. i think about what they could see, if they were open, if they could see straight ahead, straight up through the rose floodlights, if they could see. if they could see through the ceilings and floors, through each rotten grape in my refrigerator, and through the roof. if they could see through the hollow moon that rings like a bell. if they could see that the moon was safe tonight.

i had a dream where all my teeth were broken. i touched them with my fingertips, slowly running them over each sandcastle in my mouth, and something in my chest blossomed like a cold, wet lily. i woke up kicking, and my foot struck the glass coffee table, knocking over the long-stemmed glass chalice filled with sand and an ermine skull. i picked up each shard, like they fell out of my mouth, and my heart kept blooming.

i think about the way they burn; how the pile of organs in the center of the body remains for what seems like an impossibly long time in the heat, and how the flames make them glisten and pulsate; and how alive it makes them look, even more human than before the burning.

when i close my eyes, the right side of my body doesn’t exist, like it was zippered off like stephen tyler’s in that aerosmith video. only there’s no green maniac hiding inside of my chest; just that cold, slippery ball of organs, huddled together for warmth, like they don’t even know they’re forever burning and beautiful

like the exhaust stack at the steel mill that blows blue fire that whips into orange. at night, when i can’t sleep because of the eyes, i drive to the secret place that’s as close as you can get to the burning. from there, it seems like i can grab the flames, pull them kiss-close, and let them whisper in my ear. i am afraid of what they could say, so i keep my hands in the car, and watch as the moon makes its slow, graceful, rise over the stack, and the flame gives it a seemingly unbearable number of lashings for its nightly trespass.

tonight, in the movie theatre, with the reflected light of the screen flickering over my skin, i felt my right hand move slower than my left, and the lily in my chest sprouted its roots through my whole body, infinitely branching, and electric-cold. i closed my eyes, and and my body was halved again. the lily unfurled, furled, then unfurled itself while i tried to breathe through it, telling my brain that i was being paranoid. i ran to the bathroom, feeling both legs carry me, and put my hands to the mirror. i closed my eyes again, feeling them both against the glass and listened to my heart beat through the roots in my chest, and imagined it beating on a stone pedestal in a collapsed jungle temple with flaming sparrows flying overhead, with the only sound being that far-off whooping of some unseen animal that is always in movie jungles, and the beating.

i took my hands from the glass, and flexed them at the same speed while their steam print copies faded slowly from their edges, until nothing remained but my prints, larger than my reflection in the mirror, like two large STOP signs keeping me from falling straight into that world where the paranoid kid, terrified of his left side, was pushing back.

driving back from the theatre, i took the exit to take me to the secret place, and the flame was low, and blue, like a gas stove. and i cried as i watched the moon sail nervously over the little blue flame, and i felt its fear of those tongues and the way they lick. and i even pitied the flame, who looked so small and alone, even though it was still probably twice as tall as the funeral home, and i wanted to cup it in my hands, and press it to my chest, its blue light poking out between my fingers.

this is stunningly beautiful. the lush imagery. the gauzy dreaminess of it.
i love it