Tasting the Colours of Ice

Rejectamenta

Rejectamenta, n.

Def.

1.

My hands are blue and I want to

write you a winter

of poems and of memories

drawn on your skin like freckles or like

tiny bruises

that trail down your neck-

a galaxy's worth of stars

trailing down the void of

you.

I am afraid

to wake up again to the morning

propping herself up and

boring holes into pillows of trees with

her elbows, because

her breath is growing

far, far,

far too cold on my shoulders, and I

am too sad to stay

warm.

Do not sleep

next to me- I will not sleep-

I cannot sleep-

but I know the night is colder than

the day and I-

I left the windows open,

and the air now smells of

clenched teeth and long nights

and bad

memories

of battling frenetically with knit socks

to sounds I wish were just heavy

metal music with the instruments cut

out-

all but the drums, all but the crashing

of objects not meant to fly

into objects not meant to withstand

blows.

2.

I want you

to bury me in snowdrifts and hold me:

tether me down with

ropes of bitterness,

all hanging down from the rafters

of some little house with the windows alight,

like tendrils of thoughts in the

mind of a madman.

I cannot do much but breathe-

choke-

on the new autumn air,

for every last gulp of atmosphere

feels like a frantic attempt to stay alive

while drowning

in every damn apology you

have ever uttered simply because you are

alive:

and you are alive, very alive,

in the same way as the wind

and as the moonbeams in my window are

alive, breathing on my curtains.

I am growing more

aware recently of our bones

and the blue trees that grow within us,

unnoticeable aside from a few places

in which our skin

is as pale as today's sunrise.

I am growing more aware of our

Morning-glory fragility

and of how,

one day, as I drag my fingers over your chest

as I always do,

I will leave frost in their trails and

I will hurt you-

and until then I am sorry,

until then I want to see every day

the stars born in the nebulae

in your eyes.

And though I do not want to be

the black hole in the centre

I am a supervoid, an interstellar

parasite made up of every heavy thing

that has ever collided with my head

and I did not mean

to drag you in

so deep. I am a heretic

to the matter between my temples; I am

too selfish to love you

for even through the words I will write,

the lies I will try to force down

my own shut throat, I

still cling to the knowledge

that whatever is left of you

from my tugging and tearing

will remain with me, a blanket

worn thin from years of

sleepless nights and from my teary-eyed mutterings,

to remind me of my sincerest regret

and to whisper it to me

as if it were a miracle.

3.

We are a pair of gunshots not yet heard, a pair of matches

grating on a matchbox-

potential lost at every failed attempt, two

trains waiting to collide and destroy,

but you have made an ending for me impossible

in more ways than one- and I want

so badly

to stop writing this train wreck

but this is- you are- my addiction,

my fix,

the glue holding me together,

and water cannot wash away words

that are not yet written.