Sleep Walk
Iwas the tide, licking the arch of the cave. You were the cave; your salt-stained walls, a tunnel. You were a surface of limestone, dissolved by my kiss. I grew a tooth of calcium and crystal to puncture those trespassers. You were the trespasser, a leery stranger swimming in my depths. I was the labyrinth: twisting, impenetrable. You were the sleepwalker, foundering in this tract. You opened the door. I metabolised your every movement. You were pure motion, a cavorting ecstasy of wrong turns. I was turned on, a big light switch with the room spilling out into a field of bright white like a sheet of paper. I was always folding into myself. I was a fanfare, a good time, vaudeville, here for the show. I was your greatest fan. You held me in your hand. I was the air softly on your cheek.
You brought me together and took me apart. I hid my shadows. You were the tune pulled from my lungs. I was a lung, a wheezing intimacy between us. You were the vibrations in the air. I was a faint memory of everyone you used to know. I knew you better than anyone. You put me on as a skirt. I was a concertina around your waist. You were the concert, the whole symphony of clarinets and flutes and violins, a vertiginous reverie of chords. I was the conductor, leading you on. You were the f-hole on the face of the instrument, a curled absence. I plucked you out of the orchestra. You were the lashes of my moustache. I twirled you between my fingers. Your eye became wet with tears. I was the tear, rolling down the dream and landing on the wooden floor of the stage. You were the wood grain, a porous timekeeper. You soaked up my misery. I was the curtain that flanked you, a draping velvet embrace of textile. You read me like a text. I was lettering in large across the auditorium, spelling out your name. You made a bed inside the crossbar of my capital A. I was your language, always translating solid into liquid. Who are words for? You were the sounds coming out of my mouth, braiding an illusive plait of conversation. I was the plait of thick hair falling down your back, a coiffed copycat. When you swayed, I swayed; when you pirouetted, I spun too. We were a tandem circus, always in double. You were doubled over in a cacophony of mirth. I was the peal of laughter, something close to blooming. You were a night flower, your petals translucent in the moonlight. I was the moon, for once, my waxen craters looking upon you. You were a crater, a pit in my stomach. I was ravenous. You were an ancient hunger that would never be satisfied. You howled endlessly. I was a violent organ. You were a corset, all boning and stiff striped panels laced to the nines. I was the colour red slinking down your torso. You were beside me, angelic white. We repeat each other in an ouroboros of pattern. I was a breast, heaving away from your spine. You were my spine, a hotbed of anger and indignation. You pulled the strings. I was another string in your bow. You were a bow, a perfect coil of ribbon, dolled up like a present. I took a bow for the empty audience. You were barely audible. I was a whisper, only a fume of love. You dabbed me on your wrists and the nape of your neck. You were a bouquet of sodden green and smoke. I was the quill of smoke, and you know what they say: where there's smoke, there's fire. You were ablaze, a cruel inferno. I was tinder, a bundle of sticks ready to ignite. You were a key rotating in the ignition. I was ready to go. You warmed me up. I was the engine ricocheting across the valley. You were the exhaust, a blackened trail leading them right to us. Exhausted, I was a collapsed wish. You were the wishbone in my side. I rooted you out. You cracked in two. I threw you into the sea and hoped for the best. You were the sea and you came back for me. I was a lock of seaweed tumbled by your white horses. You were the long coastline. You yawned and I came in. I was the driftwood, smoothed and tamed in sequences of sevens or eights, hoisted along by something lunar. You were the grain of sand buffing my splinters. I was a splinter and I got under your skin. You were a composition of fluids and organs playing to a circadian rhythm. I was the tide, waking you up.