Work Text:
Let’s play a game called desolation.
I’ll hop across all the cracks in you made when you were felled from godhood, opening up
like the skin of a Zaytun Peach,
And we can pray together to break your mother’s back.
Let’s play a game called orchestration.
You’ll dive in deep to the heart of the world, gather roots of memory by the handful,
And we can see how history twists into faerie tales beneath your thumbs.
Let’s play a game called hope:
I’ll be the hunter. You’ll be the chased.
Together, we can find – unobserved by Heaven – some delicate moments of peace.
Hey.
Let’s play
A game
Called ladders of vines.
I’ll let my hair tumble down the side of the mighty tree,
And you can climb it. You can ascend me.
Let’s play a game called nothing.
The scent of old papyrus and stale saffron coating your fingers, and the sun, wrapping her rays around your neck – I’ll see it, and I’ll see you. Satisfied.
(Let’s play a game nobody knows.
What are the rules? I’m sorry. Some other version of me might recall.
It’s too dangerous to cradle between our fingers, they’d say–
But if I am nobody, and you are nobody else,
Then we’re only searching for what we deserve.)
Let’s
play
with
words.
Sing me a song from the child’s heart you keep wrapped in your spirit. Not the one thrust upon you.
Watch me as I cut myself down and plant myself anew in greener soil.
Dance for me, with your abandoned strings like a bridal train chained to your joints,
And I’ll be your foundation. I’ll be every wall and every corner embracing you.
Let’s play a game
Meant for secondhand divinity like us, okay?
It’s this game
Where I run my hands through your hair, and you put your head in my lap,
Whilst I tell you what all the finches in the boughs are saying.
The lance of the moon through the leaves and the quiet moonset.
You’ll ask me, Where do we go from here?
And my answer will depend on the day.
Icarus, who landed in the sea with buoyant wings. The boy who did not drown.
Ariadne, more beloved for her string than anything. Even herself.
Why don’t we play a game where I write us into legend?
And we’ll always be together
in a story
that never ends.