oliver-hawthorn

[oliver-hawthorn]

I grew up a pretty yellow songbird;

Put in a shiny little tank and taken

Down into the dirt

To see how deep was too deep

How dark was too dark-

How much air could be stolen from the bird

Before the miner dropped

I was the first,

A test run,

In my dying and living and dying again,

I wonder,

Did someone else make it out alive?

Did I save the miner?

Was it worth it, really-

Going first?

[oliver-hawthorn]

I dream of The Fog between us

During the day when my eyes are wide

Open

Life is swimming through

All this sick, thick air weighing me

Down, down-

All sinking feeling, no float

Why does thinking of you

Make my bones feel so heavy-

I feel blindsided, still,

By a thousand neon suns

Echoing back through all that

Fog

[oliver-hawthorn]

Six and a half years later, and i

Still visit the grave that has never been yours in my sleep-

As if I could dream you a memorial

Somehow that will hold all of this dust

Together,

All these star speckled cobwebs

All these decades and seconds;

You visit me in my sleep, and

It tastes like flying, sometimes,

Tastes like knowing you in a real way, again,

Feels like you, to the imporant places-

To the bones of me that loved you best,

Loves you best still.

Sometimes

I wonder if that's where you went-

Maybe you're just drifting through the meat of my mind;

Just like you always were.

I am afraid of stars leaving the web-

I am afraid that pieces of you will leave me,

That they will never come back,

They will drift off into the space between us,

Where neither of us could reach them again-

Who am I,

To forget anything about you?

They were right-

Time is a rabid thing.

[oliver-hawthorn]

Sleepless night, and

You sit heavy as a cat on my chest-

Ribs burning as you seep through

The flesh on your way from

That place deep in the cage of me

Where i keep us, still, keep you-

Ocean sea salt cravings lapping at

Everything in me that has ever waved goodbye to anything (anyone)

There's a taste in my teeth

Somewhere between familiar bile and

More familiar bitterness, all

Wrapped up pretty in these dreams,

All crystal clear and fogged window-

Sometimes you come when I call for you,

An echo of a memory of a love (or maybe)

A ghost or a dream or a secret;

Nobody I know now knew me when I knew you;

How could anyone ever know me at all, then?

(I miss you.)

(I miss you so much.)

[oliver-hawthorn]

There is a dream that laughs

Like a lullaby-

Like a whisper, like a ghost-

She stays a half step behind,

Hiding in my shadow like i

Wouldn't recognize her from worlds away-

From half a step away-

There is a dream,

And she smells of nicotine and roses,

Fallen leaves and rushing river,

Campfire and fresh paint,

Calls to me like memory, a whisper,

Like halfway home-

Like halfway nowhere.

[oliver-hawthorn]

Honey suckle flavored breeze like

A memory of way back when,

Before the sour taste of

Rotten luck tasted me like sweet wine,

Developed an addiction to the marrow

Of bones small, but not yet hollow,

Not flightless, just not flying-

It would be years until I learned to fly-

To rip myself from the ink of it and run

Down the street and straight into the clouds.

[oliver-hawthorn]

Glass bottle bomb bones

All compress and no explosion

Slow lava flowing somewhere and

Nowhere all at once;

A build up almost like rage

Without the satisfaction,

Hot and burning and ice-rigid

Far off ruby red river,

Gilt in the wake and bubbling over in it-

Sunrise gold and slow burning,

More sparkler than cooking fire

Pretty and restless and consuming

Burn out but not burning at all-

Lightning veins all captured storm

Sleep a ship the sea cannot swallow.

[oliver-hawthorn]

Looking for you in everyone I meet

Only to know you will only ever be

Gone from my life

And there's no rewind for the time we're losing

No rewind at all

[oliver-hawthorn]

Been searching for the high

I found in all the pulp of you

In the flesh of strangers, see,

Maybe that's the catch

Maybe I'm looking for something other than

Skin deep

[oliver-hawthorn]

The leaves are falling again

And soon everything will be

So pretty back home

[oliver-hawthorn]

All dolled

Up late pretty

Lonely in the

Lamplight

All glow no

Shine;

Time to

Wash up

Head off socket

Kinda rinse out;

Pop jointed echo

Some kind of fucking

Wackjob

[oliver-hawthorn]

[oliver-hawthorn]

I'm three a.m. dizzy, now

Sipping water full of mint I grew myself,

Have been all summer

I spent summer catching up with me;

Gluing all the cracks back in place

There's so much time,

I've been trying to fill it with parts of me

I left behind a long time ago,

Dusting them off like all that recycled sea glass-

Building new parts, too, maybe better parts;

The medication works somedays better,

Somedays worse,

And it's that time of year again,

And the cravings come as they do,

All pumpkin carved, and just in time;

But I am trying to be good

Even if sometimes I'm not

And they say that counts for something,

These days-

I have been living all the parts of me I killed.

Of course there will be scarring, left.

But I have been drinking mint,

All summer.

[oliver-hawthorn]

The patio is green and warm

And feels a little bit right and

A little bit wrong

Because I'm still in all the wrong places

At all the wrong times, anyway

But the flowers are growing and

I can smell the mint when I sit for long enough

And briar sits, happy in her window

So really maybe it's just

Me that's not quite right

[oliver-hawthorn]

Looking for you like there's something there still

And I know that I can't but I hope that I will

Hell us a place where my lover can't go

So I wait and I wait, in this pit down below

[oliver-hawthorn]

Walking to your house

In my sleep

Every night this week

Of course I am tired

You have not been home

I am worried it means

You don't live there anymore

Either

[oliver-hawthorn]

You went like summer in the spring

A little at a time and then all at once

I am left falling through

The winter of you, still