objective correlative

The world grows dark, I grow mad.
Oh, how the time grows near!
It growls in my ear.
Black fan travels side to side,
head to toe, tide to tide.
Hair like the leaves of trees
waves in the curling fingers of the breeze.

I lie in bed, I paint my head,
I drape my body in black and red.
Cigarettes, money
Cellphone, I.D..
A knock at my door:
“are you ready?”

(What is it about the scent of you
that is so very sudden, arresting?
Dark smoke, a hint of sex,
the damp, humid, swollen night
clinging to your wet hair.)

We follow the music, and we arrive,
we watch the streetlamps come alive:
yellow beats on blackened streets.

“Welcome to Mobius,
the night that continuously folds in upon itself.
The rules are:
Always show respect for those around you,
Shake that fine-ass booty of yours whenever humanly possible,
and, of course,
This shit ain’t over ‘til the last record spins!”

And it’s the beat of a drum in your wild heart,
And it’s electric shocks from neck to knees.

It spins, it burns, it hears, it sees.
 
Hand reaches for sweat-soaked belt loops,

Lips find primal pulse raging
in veins of throat.

Upon drinking heavily and staying up all night long,
dawn creeps in, bathed in breath and soothed by song.
We hurry home.
When the sun comes up I lose my powers,
I count the seconds, I count the hours-

-but today I stay awake and pray.
Today you watch me remove the bones
of emotion, extracting them slowly
from their thin & cracked skin veil.

You tell me that I’m self-destructive.
I’m telling you, it’s more productive.

“This is a song to open the curtains to,”
I say, rising,
(a crescendo)
      yanking the cord,
            light tumbling in.
How dim it had been!