love in the time of human papillomavirus

He shudders back to life as I whisper for the fiftieth time,

- Hello? hello?

into his ear, afraid that he’s died on me. in what he calls my ‘ingenious ingenue-ity’,

I do not notice that he is still breathing,

so i just continue whispering, impatient, furried by his silence.

And he rises suddenly and I shrink back with a yelp at his sudden motion.

Hands stained bloody with the flowing tide, pressing down on his chest,

pumping life back in and out. World’s nailed down.

I watch the clouds move across his darkening eyes.

Away from light. Away from death.

- Towards hurt.

He takes my hand, curling one fist from two

palm on palm, wrist on wrist, peacefully mixed,

while his life pools around him in a scarlet puddle, leaking motor oil around

the bullet wound dug deep.

Lying against the grassy springtime rubble of a concrete island

beneath a sky spread out with an evening blanket

of polluted stars shining sickly in the nuclear light.

Grips my hand in his, folded like a

star-streaked banner red and white and blue across his chest,

enveloped by lilies, blood, cornflower.

Exploding in a fiery pyrotechnic display, a holocaust

that destroyed Our World.

World’s too petulant.

But we have to drive for it, he tells me. We have to destroy it or it will destroy us.

Oh, well.

And when I wake, the Dream collapses.

A shot right in the face of the American Dream. Bang!

A lifetime of messing things up fixed with one determined flash.

The final gunshot was the exclamation point, a final report to mark the END.

The line begins to blur. Just the other day

I saw the world ablaze.  (On television, of course.) Pillars of fire lit up under the sun in Manhattan,

Flaming towers of burning steel, melting in the cold compress of aviation fluid.

Bridges crumbling with the decay of time and rust -

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

And in the heartland mushroom clouds surge forth alongst ruined horizons,

ushering in the whipping bite of nuclear winters.

Fimbulvetr descending like snow from post-apocalyptic dawn.

A world in flames, a world collapsing like a fist rising above the world to pound down on it,

envelop all the light, a tree of life, blooming, blooming like a plague.

A world encaged in monolithic blocks of ice. Rendered insensible in the freezing heat.

Only her left. Only Amy.

Eyes like pooled shadows under deep forest canopies shut out with deadened life,

green with flecks of black, staring down at me. Watching over me.

This can’t be how it ends. One of us will die inside these arms.

Her dazzling pace.

Her curving way.

That terrible TTHuUuUuUndeRRRR roaring in my head.

That terrible haste reeeeeending the World apart.

My Violent Love. Her Gentle Hatred.

And VengEance.

We must drift and stagger and stumble onwards. Because if there’s a wind,

I am not the wind she thinks I am.

Amy’s the wind, Amy’s the tempting tempest.

Blowing. Blowing us on towards pain,

- Towards hurt.

Gunned down in the autumn leaves, spread close against

the vanilla skies, the ground pushing us

towards the glowing embers of the dawn’s last light - the burning trails of the rockets’ red glare.

Her hand, bitter cold, dragging me down, pulling me towards salvation.

Spread her fingers past the aeroplane lights, line them up with the F A L L I N G stars,

constellations testament to our Weirder Ways.

Fallen dragged out and beaten down but Allone with my shining light,

my unintended choice to live my life extended,  to fight the good fight.

And if I fight the good fight, will lines deepen in my faith to craft a look of resignfull defeat?

Something I am forced to face. Forced to accept a life forged in resentfull irony.

- You can be the one I’ll allways love.

Not much time left, I know. The wound grows larger and larger,

a mirror shattered so when I reassembled the pieces

all I could see was the reflection of a Love rendered disastrous,

the barrel of a smoking revolver and the smiling killer behind.

It was all worth it in the end, wasn’t it?

Blur. Tremble. My greyest sky, the coldest shade of gunmetal black.

And I’ve got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle.

My fallen land, torn up and razed to the Western Wind. Scatter me against the sea, O Fortuna.

- Vita detestabilis nunc obdurat et tunc curat ludo mentis aciem.

- Audentis fortuna iuvat. No more tears, he says.

Tears turned for a deadlier wake,

watering the endless samsara cycles of universal sorrow and decomposing

bodies springing up in the springtime in our backyard gardens.

-O Captain my Captain -

-Shhhhh, Shantih Shantih Shantih. Love won’t tear us apart.

My Pining King, Free and never betrayed, never sold out,

reproaching me, a kiss blowing away in the radioactive dust.

-What the hell happened?

-A stranger rode to town with a big iron on his hip.

And he was here to do some business with a big iron on his hip.

The World falls apart for him and for us to blow it all away

in a hail of 5.56mm rounds would forfeit all that I allready Love of him.

This is only the beginning, Amy.

When all that you held sacred

breaks down and does not mend,

just remember that death is not the end.

A little less conversation and a little more action would’ve helped.

Betrayed. Shot point-blank, a round right through my chest.

Fortune could’ve saved me. But you’ll find out soon enough

how quickly she’s willing to prostitute herself out.

She came a minute too late.

But sixty seconds late is better than never.

And she returned with Amy.

And he collapsed to the earth,

hurl’d headlong flaming from the ethereal sky

with hideous ruin and combustion down

to bottomless perdition, here now to dwell forever

in adamantine chains of a clawless death.

If a tree fell in the forest and no one knew, did it actually fall?

Only I know. Only I saw.

The morphine syringes scatter around him. The drugs aren’t working.

Back alley rape. Backyard war. Sidebar massacre.

And in Flanders Fields the poppies blow.

And I’ll bury a bible in these halls.

And I’ll bury a black cat between these walls.

And I cannot destroy any more.

For I cannot destroy him. Not now. Not ever.

Because through withering & wroth,

through hands strained worn by the callous beating of time,

I can’t leave any more. I can’t leave her, ever.

The leaves beneath me, red and brown and yellow and orange,

the dying remainders of an era once prosperous.

And she is everything to me. I can’t leave Amy.

She raises me up to lift mountains.

She is amongst the scattered leaves.

She gets me closer to god.

Under her I am everything and nothing. I am a god amongst ants,

an ant amongst gods.

Without her I am nothing.

The pain. The numbing morpheic dragging. cutting away at the edges of my vision.

Oh, the morphine. Help me, Amy.

The drugs don’t work, they just make it worse.

Blurring. I must say what I must say. While I am still awake-

-I can’t live if living is without you.

-We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when, but we’ll meet again, some sunny day.

And I’ll stomp my foot down on the gas when a black cat crosses my path.

And I’ll keep my umbrella down here, I’ll toss the salt behind my ear.

I’ll keep a horseshoe on my step. I’ll keep a cross around my neck.

I’ll drape the garlic over my bed.

Mercury oceans dangling softly, water falling quickly

drifting tangling enclosing whispering

softly in our ears to let it all away,

raindrops thundering down invisible window panes

colliding with bursting stars shattered splattered

in deep impact with stratospheric noise.

And the rain beats down, down down,

a hammer on the heads of daisies

and the early winter frost rroooolllllllsssss in

and decapitates the last surviving flowers,

covering the earth with the multiplying villainies

of nature’s ruinous breeds.

And there’s a chance, there’s a bend.

Rushing in the riverside past the garden of transcendent delights

from swerve of shore to ironwilled bend of bay,

through the twisting grass and bales of hay

rushing by headlong and into perditious ruin.

If I could start again a million miles away.

I am the current and she the currency of every risk

I’ve taken and of every one I ever will take.

A valkyrie spreads her wings over me.

Ravens flock in the air and block out the sun with sanguineous haze.

Arms reaching down, pale white arms, to receive me in a warm embrace.

Carry me off to fight the good fight. I welcome them.

My valkyrie- immaterium, a beautifull light, a pond undisturbed by tremour or ripple

no matter how many rocks they throw at her.

Untouched by the falling leaves, a fire unkindled and burning at starbright starlight.

Marvel her and lose everything. Enjoy her presence her then with me.

Drag me down into the adorning adoring ripples,

beneath broiling skies cool earth over chilly mire beneath burning stars.

He stirs and he tries to rise, Atlas shrugging against the chains of

titanic struggle. Stars above me burn lights into my back and we turn to look

up at them, the passing aurora borealis, a fading ethereal brightness.

A million eyes shining down on us, having witnessed this burning end.

The eyes of angels, frowning down upon me.

The sky pours rain, drop by drop, ocean by ocean. The blood pools beneath me,

my caressing hands, washing across her bare feet,

flowing downward, downward, downward, a million miles deep and thicker

than any river run golden with the aging fight.

The stars have shined and they shine

and will continue to shine for hundreds of years

and for all We know they could be dead, long dead.

Stars burned out aeons ago would still appear just as bright, just as alluring.

If the sun were to extinguish now, it would takes Us eight minutes to realise it.

The astrologers put their faith in stars, yet how can you put your faith

in something that is allready dead, that has been dead for so long now?

All my life, I’ve been taught that if my stars aligned in all the right ways,

I would be safe, I would be allright.

Stars to live by. Stars to stir you awake.

Stars to love by. Stars to guide your way.

Stars to die by. Stars to end your days.

-I no longer wish to look at them.

-I no longer wish to look upon dead things.

Let us go, then, you and I, when we’re spread out in the sky

our restless nights and subtle lies laid out bare under police spotlights.

And under the spread of the plinian tree, I found you, and you found me.

And let me wear such lying disguises.

No car alarms, no sudden surprises.

We could be heroes, just for one day.

Or we can fall under the sky and waste the World away.

Is it like this in death’s other kingdom?

Waking allone at the hour when we are trembling with impassioned love,

lips trespassing warm places and gentle with the glow of dying care?

The warm yellow fog that creeps down from the skies

forms the prettiest clouds in your pityfull eyes.

-I’ll  be with you allways. We’ll meet again.

-I’ll see you again in another life. When we are both cats.

And by you, this Dream is collapsing.

I’ll destroy myself to watch you fly.

But I’ll betray no Dream if you stand by me

amongst the living and the dead. For without,

there is only dragging death, and the swinging door.

Everyone betrays the Dream, but with you, why would I ever?

O Amy no, I could never let you go.

And by you, the World falls apart.

Dangles by a golden chain, which I’m willing to cut to save your life.

But I’ll burn no World if it turns with you the axis.

For without, it turns in only revolutions of Ruin.

Everyone betrays the World, but with you, why would I ever?

O Jack no, I could never let you go.

The horror! The horror!