(no subject)

[cridecoeur]

So in addition to planning for NaNo this year, I have also apparently decided I am sick of trying to make the dual narrative of Under the Beautiful Star work and have instead, uh, started to write it as a novel told entirely in poems. I lay full blame for this on The Alphabet Conspiracy, which got me interesting in the idea of a novel told through poems in the first place. It is going... okay, it's strange, ngl.

We cracked asphalt at the end of the world: no
The bombs did not reach here, this bed
Beneath a shattered window and there are
Hospitals in the churches and no hospitals
In city buildings; the cities are eyeless, there
Are no windows left: no
We do not walk the streets where
No more lamps light the sidewalks
And cars are corpses like crickets in summer.
The last looting is our minds: you see them,
Gods, not people, saints, not believers: no
We do not recognize our faces in mirrors;
They are not our faces anymore, we are not
Mouths, eyes, ears, tongues, hair, or human,
There are ghosts in the cities and they are
Louder than the living: no
We do not speak when we are there, and
A bright light in the night sky is our last vision,
Of our lives here, lives we have not lived
For years beneath this sky, this sky like a bruise: no
This Earth like rust does not strengthen but degrades.
You follow a boy down the hallway: he has
Wings on his shoes and knows where I am,
Behind a locked door where I have lost my mind,
And my tongue is not your tongue, your words: no
We do not touch like lovers when the doors are open,
They can see us standing there, two silhouettes,
And a single lamp to light the room, and we
Do not leave, we will not leave: no
The sun does not rise here anymore.

Aaand:

He is one sung shadow to the next: he has fallen
Like you, from the heavens, streaking to Earth,
Though without your sainthood: the stars
Have followed him here; your skin echoes the night,
A swarm of lights like fireflies in summer,
And you are much older than we thought,
So many teeth in your head, we should
Have warned the sun about you, the moon,
Each light in the sky trembles,
When your skin shifts: no we do not know
What you are, but we know the one who made you:
She is missing; we will have to leave.

IDEK how this is going to work out, I really don't. /o\