Dream Country

The girl's finger's were like ropes,
lashing the boy to her as with iron hoops.
The girl couldn't help it: had been used,
had been abandoned, so was not responsible
when her words made themselves manipulations,

When the sun rises high, I'll tell you a mystery.

The boy remembered a night spent sleeping
in front of a fire, the flame burning down
as the moon rose, all his friends
off in the woods smoking pungent grass.
He had vowed never to be alone again.

One night they slept together, innocently,
legs and breath entangled in a bag
in the woods, muted stars peering at them
through tree limbs. They whispered promises
in each other's ears, and each promise they broke.

When the moon burns low, I'll tell you a mystery.

Why are the sun and the moon opposites,

asked the girl. Screw dualism.

The boy had fallen asleep, and his dreams

were loud, a great dark void

swallowing all he had ever known.

When the light of the sun and the dark of the moon

meet in the morning's fresh gloaming,

I'll tell you a mystery.

The girl stood and looked at the boy,

his mouth open with a fine line of spittle

tracing his cheek. No disgust, but pity.

She walked the forest as if she had never known fear,

as if the waving limbs of pine trees were never monsters.

Tears traced down her sleeping face:

her dreams were of worlds colliding,

the sun's face going dark, 

the moon falling from the sky,

the boy become a man, sliding out of her control.

When the sun burns the dew off the grass, now, I'll tell you a mystery:

We none of us know any other person, nor do we know ourselves,

but true love is possible.