Manic-Xenophobe

we will become silhouettes slowly, first, like candle wax melting: you lose the colour in your memories. my sunflower rainboots become dust, stuck in my hair, dust. the room lies in silence. behind my ears, i kept a bit of melancholy but i lost it yesterday. the winds smoothed out that edge to your smile that was like the beard of a key, fitting just right. we were solid ground. "forever". now, the room lies in silence. we were warm skin, once. tomorrow, as the day comes up, we will be left as merely silhouettes. half-forgotten

"It's not meat you know." He'd slipped up silently beside me at the meat counter and was pointing to the shrink-wrapped flat of striploin I was holding. "They print those, from meat flavoured engineered inks, but they're not meat." As I turned to look at him, he withdrew slightly and glanced furtively around, shrinking into the hooded sweater he was wearing. "LeGrange and Baxter, those are real meat. Grown in a field, real. Not those ones though, they're all printed." I put the steak down and looked further down the coolers at the LeGrange display. "Your jeans too, not cotton. They sell them as cotton, but it's not organically grown cot

i. To the boy who prefers spending Friday nights at home: the world does not understand how beautiful silence sounds sometimes. As you crack open that book you've been waiting to read,  or plug in your computer,    or listen to music,      or,         or,            or, or maybe just stare at the night sky from your bedroom window- (please) remember what everyone else seems to forget; that being alone does not always equal lonely-- and that sometimes no company is the best company there is. ii. To the girl who does not speak up in class: I was once you. You are not deficient, I promise, despite everyone telling you otherwise.

(i think i had wings, once, back when the world still looked a little lighter than the darkness--) i. they told me, darling, we've got some news about that sickness in your bones; but not to worry, not to worry, we'll try our best to find a way... ii. i used to think 'our best' was good enough, back when i could stand on my own two feet without slipping and sliding as the world turned sideways; back when i was younger and staring at the pillows on the bed at the fallen-out hair lying on the crisp white linen; and as tears rolled through ­ my eyelashes the apologies poured from parent's lips, whispering promises that tomorrow will b

and that girl talks          like the dead, don't you go near her, boy -- for ghosts were never meant for loving, these dead eyes     were never meant     to see; there's nothing left in a desert too overrun by heat to be called home (and she said to halt your hallelujahs, save your words for other gods - no one's left to hear the          cries, and the          devil's on the throne)