So you’ve spent your whole lifetime
galloping towards the dark river
in dim soaked bars and whiskey nights
that came like lightening without sleep
on bedsheets like graphite
earthworms, chipping paint, and a minimum wage,
embarking and leaving again,
unpaid bills, and forgetting the names of your gods,
you’ve spent your whole lifetime
repeating old prayers that brought nothing in turn.

And the strange woman you loved
who took you into her prison and
made you poor and restless with her,
sweating over mosquito nights beside a flame
with eyes wide open, tired eyes that cannot sleep.

And you watched her breathing in and out,
and you cusp her lips with your palm,
and you wanted to cry, and forsake the
path towards the dark river.

But it was night, and the sky collapsed
upon your back, and the spirit blew out your fire.
And the only things that shined were her eyes,
glaring for hope within a hot-hell of sweat.

You laughed at the irony, and responded
with destruction. And she stared at it, trying
to understand it, to feel it, to press her lips against it.
And our descendants built icons for us, out of bricks.
But alas no descendants which built bridges for us.

You stared through the wilderness, gallaping full-speed towards the dark river.
You left only marks made of wood, which wind had destroyed long ago.
And it was day, and the sky was open,
and from nowhere tired eyes gave to creation,
and saw that from the molecules of atoms an imperfect body in love with another.
And it stirred under the sheets, and begged for comfort and protection.

And the dark river did not call your name.
For you had crossed it long ago.