the sky caught the smoke rings you blew from your lips

One*~

Silence is a typewritten eulogy for things better left unsaid.
words are cesspools of vapour, and our hands
tridents against the inky vultures of the night.
you told me to duck when they swooped, and they left gaseous trails
and the smell of burnt matches in the heavens.
the sun was a lighter, but you held it too close.
the clouds were the rings of smoke you blew from your lips,
as fragile as the wings of a moth
in mid-december.
bits of onyx embedded in place of your teeth,
your tears were fiery gradients, but i only saw you cry once. 
weakness was something you never really wanted to show.
and you said that silence is one of those things that the wind cannot take away. 
 
'invincibility is not a choice,' you used to tell me, when it rained
and you used to stone the sky. 'it's a burden, a dismissal, a way of telling you that life
is a war and you've just gotta
plough through the battlefield
and plough through the pain.
plough against the cannons
and the calling of the sky.'
you eyes hazed over when you spoke, amethysts set in gold, but you were gruff as you stepped out of my door and told me to watch out for those snowlines.
and you stood by my porch all evening,
breathing smoke. i thought of you as a dragon grounded to earth, the way you'd curse inertia
and the way you'd always smile when you heard the heavens screaming. 

the heavens were always screaming. 

Two*~

Promises are meant to be broken, like rain is meant to fall. 
'it's only natural,' you'd breathe, every time i told you to quit. 
but the ash fell from your lips like speckled stardust 
and you'd laugh when i glared. 
anger was a foreign concept to you. 
your laugh was a metronome and your smiles 
spun me through autumn skies where the wind would never touch the ground. 

'i'd quit,' you said softly, 'if the sky would let me. but it catches my breaths and tells me 
that i'm alive. it's like 
leaving footprints behind you when you walk. 
you want them to stay forever.' 

'i want you to stay forever,' i'd say.

so you told me you'd never leave. 
'i'm invincible, you know.'

Three*~

Human beings have always been a pretentious species
and all lies have some amount of truth within them after all.

you told me you were invincible,
and you said you never lied. 
i guess you broke your promise with that one,
both your promise and my heart.
you watched it fade
like an aztec ruin, rust against rust, 
and dust against shaded contours of misery.
you watched my walls collapse 
within--
within--
within--
me.

your snuff box is broken; it only sings faded rhymes.
like my words you could not read
and my warnings you didn't understand.
the best kind of music was your voice, didn't you know?
it shuffled all my brain cells until i felt i 
wouldn't survive. 

'metronomes aren't meant to croak,' you always said.
you said you were
invincible,
but i guess that, too, was a lie.

i pretended i didn't know about the ash-trays that lined
the underside of your bed.
i pretended i couldn't see every time you swallowed the sky. 
forty-two times every day. 
fifteen thousand times a year. 
i saw you shrivel up, your eyes turned to soot, 
and i stood by your side as the heavens wailed
songs of invincibility. 

you told me that if i stroked the sky for long enough it would fall
in shingles around my head.
like jaded eyes, or icicles we used to tap against
on frostbitten monday mornings. 

'will there be any more mornings?' i asked you as the tears fell, 
clinking like tiny hourglasses against your skin.
'there will be for you,' you breathed, 'but not for me.
i'm still invincible, you know,' you said. 

you died believing you were invincible, and that day i learnt
that death is invincible, too. 

Four*~

Breathing is illusion-ary warfare.
it's coughing up smoke and false designs. 
i tromped the world searching for a smoke-ring blower,
but the only one i knew was buried beneath loose soil and dirt, 
beneath the snows and the humus and the lilies that grew--
seasons and cycles pass, and we turn our lives;
like the spokes of bicycles, we trawl and crawl and crumble,
but we never learn. 
i still stand by your grave every morning, and breathe 
smoke. 
leaves wither, leaves fall. 
but i know i am 

invincible. 

matchsticks stamped beneath my feet, they are
the epitaphs upon your graveside.