Work Text:
MAOMAO: say love is like dying.
hand by hand climbing and creeping
up over to cover you, hide you away,
lay you down gentle to rest
and never wake. like an infection that feasts
for as long as it possibly can.
LUOMEN: observe and test. find the truth.
know when to hold your tongue
know when a bow and silence will do.
not all mysteries can be explained,
mad scientist,
but continue your search.
FENGXIAN: say love is like falling asleep
in your mother's arms.
MAOMAO: like waking up missing
a finger
and a mother.
not in the sense of wishing it was still there
only that it's not.
GRANNY: say love is a product
MAOMAO: weigh, measure, dole out
for the right price, the right hands and eyes;
nothing comes for free.
PAIRIN: or a dream
MAOMAO: all humans need sleep to live
and to wake up.
LAKAN: say love is blind.
MAOMAO: the clouding of eyes after death.
the inability to move, growing stiff.
the poison working its way through the system.
numbness in the limbs. breathing quickens,
heart palpitates, first aid required.
if not immediately treated
there will be long term complications.
(inevitable as mortality?)
JINSHI: say love is the right time, the right place, almost the right person
MAOMAO: being born with the right blood,
precious blood, or the gravity of skin to skin,
the wayward hairpin or the need to be seen,
the piercing of veils, the scar she traces
across your cheek, which she will be shot for.
SHISUI: say love is a burning fuse
MAOMAO:
SHISUI: a goodbye
MAOMAO:
SHISUI: a borrowed hairpin
JINSHI: a promise
MAOMAO: no true resurrection medicine yet, but
already it is known how to feign death
and be woken from it. continue the search
more answers, more poisons, more cures.
XIAOLAN: say love seems pretty simple
MAOMAO: teaching the letters and words
to express the yearning for better days
ghost of a sister
somewhere farther. safer.
JINSHI: say love is the cure
MAOMAO: and the poison. ingest, digest, focus:
how it operates, how you would flush it out,
how it makes the body remember it is alive
and it wants to be alive
for as long as it possibly can.
induce vomiting and grin, triumphant.
MAOMAO: i
will choke love down then force it back out,
taste the remnants still burning on my tongue,
dripping from my lips.