Leaving Emily

Leaving Emily, with her animals made of glass,
The suitcase is full to bursting, packed and padlocked.
And he, he announces that he is leaving her now,
And that she should think of leaving too.
But the bruise, and the wounds are fresh, and the windowsill is what she is accustomed to,
I wondered, but I never knew, why you’d ever come to love the thing
That will finally kill you.

Why is that? Why? Well why! It promised to,
It promised to love you till you died.
But there is difference between us,
A distance that cannot be spanned, between her and I,
We are as different in make-up as the sea is to the sky.
The difference between glass and gold,
Why the sun is blazing, and yet it leaves me cold.

I slip into the Emily-mode,
The whites have eyes as she watches him load
His belongs into the car on the street below.
Have you ever thought of crying,
But dismissed the thought? Have you ever felt that
Strange glee, that leaves you laughing, yet distraught?
I have, felt it – that is, once or twice a day.

The passing years of empires, the passing
Years into oblivion, the date is set for the stay of execution.
The distorted brain, it has its reasons, it gives its gift,
And then pours on its poisons.
When the sea works it’s way into your eyes
And releases oil, out like a stricken vessel.
This isn’t what you think it is. It isn’t love.

This isn’t mercy, mercy cannot be found behind the eye,
Beneath the doctor’s cut that disconnects the sinews,
The meat that you will never use again. My friend, it simply falls,
Withers, and falters. Calling out to you from the static noise of war.
The windowsill, the glass above The wood lets her view eternity
As if it was tomorrow. Always tomorrow, the hunter's gun
Is a nexus, the thumbprint of the barren world?

That spawns the twilight, the day, the night, and the dawn.
What a ghastly autumn this is,
Raindrops, like eyeballs. And Emily, gazing out over it all.
A still-beautiful Medusa, still, as the animals she tends to.
Then something clicks and makes the circuit,
The electrical storm that is overhead, raging, raging.
Celebrating the dear world’s birthday.

And my winner's eye is black,
And chaos comes and starts his fires
The brittle chemistry, and the thin line between a gentle heat,
And immolation. I am Emily, I think, and she is I,
We are two sides of the same hospital mattress,
Is this the elusive madness? Rarer monster, rarer still is he,
Ghastly lover that embraces me. This religious fervor,

Fever Hunter, disease catcher, ah! Ah! Ah!
I have caught you, doctor.
Surgeon, nurse, the white sheets are as white as your blank faces.
A uniform? No, a costume. A titled cross, your swastikas
Your stories. Your time earns you money, and it strips me
Of all glories. One eye fixed on the swinging door.
Dancing needles filled with bullets, the hunter comes, and injects,

And I find myself running. I find myself hunted.
But you! Freeman, not free, never free.
Not a hero just a trophy, a head on a wall.
Lacquered gold, the Midas hall in the atom of daybreak,
That cast a shadow as they walk. Strange creature, as strong as steel
That shifts the sands upon the seabed,

But as flimsy and as reflective as glass. Gelatinous,
Though the structure appears to be solid.
My hand slips through it, as cold and wet as Arctic water.
It only burns, bids hands to do its deeds, and minds to fling its arrows
Raining harm upon the unsuspecting. The ignorant myself is
Tuning in, it tells me, to build its castle, to craft its wings.
To fly despite the sun, despite the melting heat. Icarus arms, the feathered legs!

As it is today, it will be tomorrow, and the day before,
The one that follows. You are only a mockery of freedom, a clear
Head, that leaks its wisdoms. The married brain, one half of it
Is widowed. The cold body in state, the other: a raptor.
The animals, the crafted ones are breathing now
The glass it shatters, lets them out, let out
To roam the world below.