“How to Remember the 10th of September”

1.

The day is a hazy tint of Summer’s polluted air.

I walk into the light, humid and vibrant,

Like the moment you first touched my hand.

At once my lungs feel as though they will be crushed

Beneath the oppressive weight of my surroundings.

Then the breeze comes and slashes through the pause,

Reinvigorating the stillness:

The air and light piercing my brain.

I gasp.

A calm seems to envelope the world.

The uncharacteristic sensation,

A peace within the disaster of simultaneous

Opulent and absent sensations,

Stakes its claim in the sultry afternoon.

I welcome the change

Just as I embrace the fleeting reprieve of your

Unexpected caress.

I blink. The sky shifts

To a smear of color: where blue becomes orange

And white washes over the horizon,

I see you there.

Distant, yet so near,

We collide and rise with the evaporated

Vapors of September’s steam.

2.

Inside the cavern filled with rocks and stones,

A mixture of acidic anticipation rushes in,

Flooding the constricting walls of the hidden tomb.

Silently a wave crashes upsetting the established order:

Turning contentment into chaos.

All seems dark as the storm rages,

Kicking up rubble and debris.

A whirlwind of waste pushes against the sides,

Which fight back in their effort to subdue

The tornadic effects of the intrusion.

I pick up my glass.

Taking another sip, I try to forget

The way you just looked at me:

Too deep and uncontrollably deadly.

3.

What are we if not minds of kindred rapture?

Even in the dull, florescent din,

We swim ecstatically through

The waves of mediocrity.

Filling our glasses with wine,

We wander through the mirrored halls,

Averting our eyes from their reflection

Of the more unpleasant parts of ourselves.

But then I stop you,

so as to gaze into the spot

Where peace becomes pain.

A perverse mise en abyme swarms our sight,

Cracking the mirrors and glasses

That once upheld the placid personae.

We laugh.

Our giggles outshine the gilded ceilings,

The floors crumble,

And we are standing in the vacancy of our disquietude.

“Make me laugh again,”

I hear you say in the silence.

I cover your eyes and kiss your mouth.

You take my hand,

And we walk away:

Wondering when their Messiah will arrive

To clean up our mess.

4.

We collect them like alms for our poor,

Vanquished churches: hearts

Seemingly left empty by time.

Painfully awaiting our next

Lonely patron to arrive and

Worship at our altar;

We ravish and mislead

Religious hopefuls easily persuaded

By our intoxicating rhetoric.

Perhaps this empowers us?

Momentary adequacies of nothing.

Maybe we should adopt a

Pantheistic methodology.

Together, atop our mountain,

We might conquer the world.

5.

If time had led me to you any earlier,

I would have forgotten you.

Now, you stick like a sharp shard

Of glistening obsidian

In the abysses of me,

Only made more beautiful by the

Reflective qualities of the darkness.

I take the painful headache

And push it past the point

Where perception melts into pleasure.

6.

Remember that afternoon

When the rain came and

Drenched your white shirt?

Cigar smoke lingering

As you paid the meter,

So as to avoid further punishment

For our acquisition of sins?

Your hair was wet,

And I wanted to suck the drops

From your beard.

What happens to moments like these?

Are they lost in the progression of days?

Or, like unused particles, are they

Reabsorbed into the energetic

Tremblings of molecules?

Perhaps remembrance illuminates

The forgotten spaces of life?

If so, I will reawaken you.

And, as the drops trickled down your neck,