Purple Elephants

I am covered in bandages; my fingers are skinned to their veins. I’ve been torn down. I’m clumsy and I bruise like soft fruit. Sunboy, you have ruined me, being wrapped up in you makes me sick. It’s not bad sick, it’s good sick. I’m all jumbled inside, my heart is beating but it’s somewhere outside my skin; I put both hands into my chest and it’s empty and it’s full and you and I and oh- it’s too, too much. Your mouth is open, eyes are rolling back in my head and our lungs are beating furiously into each other. Spontaneous combustion. Gasps, drowning, the salt of sweat on skin. I will strip down and dive, splinters in my sides, deep down into that abandoned pool. Snap a picture. I’ll hide behind this shattered chandelier and I want to hold your hand- yes, this way, not that way- through the gaps in the glass.

My head is full of poetry, I want you hungry. I’m hungry. You make me feel seventeen, I’m clumsy and shy and sixteen, even! Your jokes shiver down my spine and I swear I’ll never stop laughing. Let’s make up languages and speak in accents, brew tea in your storybook house; I want to sit you down and cook a million gorgeous dishes on that big, black stove. Let’s run. That stage and those shelves will feel our bones yet, Sunboy.

Everything is ruined forever! Where are those purple elephants, I want them here, I want them sinking softly down on their knees and pushing their magnificence into my little striped carpet. I’m going to get down off my bed and wrap my arms around their heads, push my forehead against the heavy folds of eyelids. I’ll cry for both of us, it’s terrible and it’s true.

- What do you love?
- Orthography.

I’m seeing bicycles, lots of yellow bicycles, the room is flooded full of synesthesia. I am lost in redness that halos out around my hands. There are long, slick creatures sliding over my lampshades, but they are transparent and I can see their insides glow. Misplaced beating hearts.

- What do you see?
- Neon lights. Lips that give electric shocks.

Everything is ruined forever! I don’t mind.