by Ariana Reines
illustrator Guglielmo Castelli
Issue VIII
When I am talking to you while I am falling asleep
You are just falling faster than I am
I’m pretending not to finger the first penny that warms the sun
Inside me, where I want it to stay. You know I always forget what I say
But I guess I could try to name the sweet, clean pleasure
That’s mine when I don’t know who I am or fall asleep
After you, then wake and make no sense again just to extend the infancy of my favorite
Feeling of us being able to be anyone. Me for example your bosom friend or sister or monster, whatever
This second it seems best that I be between you and me
For the sake of us both or whatever. Your poem can drop words
And not harm its meaning, just as well
As I can have no idea what I’m saying or not knowing with you and still finally
Have somehow been saying or being it exactly from the very start, and anyway you’re the one
Who knows what I can’t. You’re supposed to.
Not only for my own sake or only inside my cluttered, emptyish
Vatican in which the heart of no child can become food for the wizened
Vagina mouths and sphincter hearts of the cruel or the self-denying, like the culture uncles
I used to allow to eat me in ways I still don’t know how to describe
Meals for which I paid in blood so handsomely it may sometimes still brush me like a horror or wind
That feels like everything I forgot to do or say to you whenever the last time our first time was.
What am I saying. What am I saying. I’m saying I don’t want to fuck it up. Or I’m saying there should be a
palace that says
Your secret is safe here, whoever you are, if you have one. That says, your secret is safe with me.
Even if it isn’t a secret and even if I fail to understand it, even if I misplace your kiss or can’t
See with any of my eyes. That palace exists, and it says hi. It says you can’t lose, Julien, and neither can I.
