Work Text:
If we don't talk about it no one will,
Because we're the last people
You and me,
We're the rain after it hits the ground
I don't want your bittersweet frown,
Makes no sense to me,
And there's no sound if it isn't from my head,
I want your useless poetry-ink instead,
Curling off your tongue poisoning you slowly,
Evaporating into the air like your cigarettes
Pour another drink I say,
You nod your head and mumble Okay
But I don't want this for us,
Stupid as it sounds,
Simplicity has no place in us except for right this second
The split second of silence in between all the leased noise
That rattles in my head a drumbeat instead
Of heartbeats and breathing sounds and everything I could have heard.
I want to hear it again.
Lay your head on my chest,
Pretend the drums are my heartbeats,
Listen for me,
Muffle the noise in your head and pretend everything's okay,
Maybe it'll help,
I don't know if it will
Because you know I'm just a sad person,
A cruel and sad person crying "Not again, not again, I want to hear it again."
I can't hide it from you.
You can hear it, too.
I'll hang my head and ask the bed,
What's honesty in the face of this?
Sitting up, shutting up, in the dark of night
That you trawl behind you as owls do,
I watch the black truth kick and scream behind your sneakers,
Never getting past your smiling teeth.
You grin and you preen and you polish some more
A shining placard on a demolished door
You carve into it, you say leave me alone,
And your Times New Roman says this could be anyone's home,
Not for a prophet like you, not for a sinner like me,
For none, for no one, but never you
You're why we can't have nice things.
You keep sleepwalking, gritting and grinding your teeth in your dreams
I hear you mumble Okay.
Your hands break the day
Through the muck of memories and slime of fear
The smoke and mirrors of lifetime-odd years
So I listen to your drunken rumsing
Slip between the cracks in the neverending death rattle
I sit up and say Shut up,
Shut up sweetheart,
We've got a little time
We've stolen some stupid and simple time
So you turn your head my way and mumble Okay,
And I want to hear it, I want to hear it, I want to hear it again.