Over the Sky She rests under Flowers

"If you follow me we'll get there faster!"

She said, over swirling winds. My arms catch the coattails of retreating butterfly insomniacs, a collage of colors searing the night. She dodges day-glo paint coated walls, multi-colored and wild on either side. I hear her perfectly. Her voice travels clear and sweet ignoring the rain soaked obstacle course. Small drops land flat and hard on unstable ground, drawing deep dark blotches on the charcoal pavement. Black spots, bleeding into grey obscurity. No cracks, or history. Washed out by the rain, like everything around us, they will eventually dry.

Her voice,

the only thing,

holding my feet to the ground

as they pat-pat-pat

pull me forward,

her thoughts work like gravity

and build this place

Where no one is. No one but us. Us, alone. The sound is hollow, an earthly vacuum. Space, the theater. She's erased the past and drawn only the present/future. An amalgam of want and have. So, my feet carry me toward her, like a dancer onstage, mesmerizing the audience with his terrific lies. While cables, thin and invisible, control his arms, legs, feet, hands; a puppet master inventing the act. Unconsciously I'm avoiding the nearest puddle, again and again, again and again. They sit still, stagnant until struck by watery meteors falling constant from the blotted out gray sky. A quick collision, a grand concert, a muddled reflection. But I'm already past myself, leaving my reflections behind. Searching for her hand-

She holds it out by the door, her hand protruding from the opening. The light from inside escapes into the alleyway toppling over itself, fiery like the sun and reckless. I close my eyes and stagger towards her. The first puddle is mine. The second is hers. She leaps in with me laughing. her body, the rain cold against her hot skin, against mine. the light rushes behind her

bathing me

in brilliant darkness

the kind that only light can bring,

brilliant and consuming,

is the eclipse-///

Watch us falling in that moment. Watch us falling in that moment frozen, maybe one thousand untold miles per hour through story, obliterating the narrator, reorganizing the setting. We create furious ripples with the clouds, whirling and caught in the storybook. Read it aloud, the sound is what we are. Now and ever ever, threads to be woven, so picture this...

There's a castle, old yet new, resting under slow moving clouds. A princess sleeps inside under careful watch. We've heard there have been many suitors. Each wish to take this beautiful maidens hand. In marriage or treachery. She's frozen in time. In future time the mystics say, not that the court would understand. She's come from somewhere else, some other place, far away. The king's helpers whisper strange sounds into the night, a voice calls out to her, from over walls, under fences, through reality; "roll them mouse over yonder the heart eye faces." They're scared, "what could such strange things mean." Ingrid to Solomon, her slow witted but caring husband. He's lost his arm in the war, but it taught him to love what he could never have, and vise-versa, or so on. "Two arms aren't for every man," he's liable to say. If you listen, of course. And most do, he's quiet and wise.

She sleeps on a bed,

unlike any other in the kingdom,

and the king hath checked

but found no clue,

They hover above her, and hold her hand. Standing over her continuous stream of...humanity, worshipers, those who are afraid, seeking guidance, seeking her hand. From far away lands, and surrounding hills, boasting of great deeds, or offering gifts."If she should awake," says one, "I shall take her with me, as my prize eternal." He peers out from behind dyed blond hair and fake smiles, "Your prize shall be mine," responds another looking quite the same. You know how these princes talk, all selfish and robust, or pretentious and haughty. Either or, the point is made. They waited for days, or an evening, steadily grew old over their bones, slow in their thoughts and words. Tired and defeated, stealing quick glances into the past. And she didn't wake up,

not for them,

not for any of them.

And the king grew old

and the kingdom grew weak,

time passed, the trees wilted

threw off their leaves

lived as skeletons

under the cold sun

and grew again.

The light grew brighter

transforming the smallest shadowed place

into goliath, towering in corners

across the bedroom floor,

the setting sun;

As her face drew close to mine, her arms folded around my neck. Her feet lifted up, like in a movie or some pivotal romantic scene. She stopped the clock and held us there for the artist. You know the one. The artist that draws all things, the one that lets you, in those few instances of happiness unlike any other, watch yourself like through a kaleidoscope looking glass. You remember those moments forever. Most keep them held close, keep them to themselves tight between their arms, a beautiful seconds long eternal secret. But when you hold each other, it's always there. Unspoken, that special thing. That artist painted thing. That no one can have, or take away. It's a forever thing, for you and me.

So we're through the door, and all the princes are knocked down. Some drag out barroom brawl, or they all fainted. At once? No one was ever too sure. The jester pretended white, but they tore him apart. Figuratively; he lost his job. Finding nowhere to lend his talents he crossed many oceans, found a small cottage and settled there. He tended his small crops but his stigma remained. Can't go telling lies the King said. He's a righteous, do good King,who missed this jester to the end of his days.

In the castle more empty with clutter by the day, conspicuous-

The bed was left

and the girl,

this magical-cosmos

looking girl

with jet black hair

and pink calming lips,

they defined the word pink,

the explorers found it

and the guy who named the crayon,

a collective memory etched deep

in the mind,

"the perfect-perfect girl"

If only one could touch her,

steal her magic for a second

a millennium,

what could they do?

for themselves?

they'll never have it;

It's her.

It's only her.

A figure, standing in the doorway, a man, blocks the flickering fire-light of the torches that line the hall. In the rooms adjoining/adjacent, asleep the King, his helpers, the guards remain, undisturbed. Solomon and Ingrid turned in for the night dreaming of their children grown and moved away. She is no longer alone. His breathing slows nervously, he takes a step, two, three, four, uneasy and disoriented. Her eyes hidden beneath sleep blinking in and out in the dark. He loves her.

And he wakes her, unlike any who have tried. He's traveled one-hundred, two-hundred, three-hundred miles, in circles, in straight lines, over cliffs where men have met their ends at peace and at war, slept alone on uncharted shores. Without light he's imagined the world. Imagined her in it. He's never heard her tale and sure the castle drew him forth. She doesn't open her eyes. Undeterred, he lies beside her. She turns like the tides.

     “Hi...” she offers, her voice muffled by sleep, but no less-- it fills his heart, his tears, something wild, future-like dips into his heart.

     “Hi,” He answers back in a daze of movement and afraid to move-stillness. The castle shakes off the icicles of recycled pasts. Irradiated from within, it feeds the sun. A gift shared between the moon and his estranged sun, appearing together on that rare late-afternoon when he sneaks ghost-like and transparent up to the tired sun. Burning orange and yellow and hot, all day.

Slowly, slowly slowly an arm under her star-clustered hair supernova. She moves with him, in sync with the fluid motion of his body. He brings her close \explosion\, coated in careful blue green red sparkling gold. A small parting of lips. A brilliant light, She turns her head. A small fissure in the fabricated unreality. It hangs by the edge of the bed, love and time in conversation.///

The End.

The book is closed, ink black and blue dried in the corner of the world. All that remains is the constant flow of time, churning like waves on the shore. The heavy crash of salt and sand. The ever present reality. We can find love in the never escape. Proceed--

Through the door, after door after door. Moving pictures and sound drowned out, stepping aside. A hand brushed over that hair and we're wavering. Black like the night and shining. In my arms and no weight, we're one. Can you see us? Lips moving over your ear? A whisper goodnight? A kiss? The artist finishes his portrait. It's ours to share forever, silently but knowing. In the darkness between the morning and the night. In your bed across time, I hold you close by as shooting stars and milky ways die and light up bright, brighter than man and earth and thoughts, but not brighter than you.

It's for you.

It's you.

It's only you.

Watching

Sunset sunrise sunset

from your bed.