My Salvation in Sleep by Chance Walsh

silhouette haze
Photo courtesy of Molly Lichten

She’s an ashen statue, strung with celestial lights.
We’re cloaked in smoke, do our mirrors deceive?
I’m just some skin and soul
soaked in kerosene
She will carry me to a field of flames
There I’ll burn the cold and melt my mouth
sew my lips, so the processed letters
can’t fall out
From the distant past, I see the forest fire
I will cause
I’ll watch all those innocent trees
The ones who stood over me,
Watching my destructive dance.
They aren’t burned yet.
But they’re all soot now.
Now the child sleeps
Soon the parents weep.
I weep for my sins,
spinning malice in love-trapping webs,
I feel like a spider,
a scary faceless freak
I’m here in my cage and everyone is looking
at me
I like their attention,
but they don’t see my claws
And they don’t see my bars.
They don’t see anything,
because they’re blinded
by affection.
So is she, but she knows me
My one and only
I’m not her only love.
I love my bleak, broken bird
She’s opened her eyes to this
pointless shattered world.
Her wings could take her anywhere
but she has no wish to fly
she wants to fall
But she is lighter than I.
So I’ll plummet with her,
I go where she goes,
even if that place
is nowhere at all.
Is it possible to disappear entirely?
Regardless,
we’ll be gone.
I’ll sleep with my weakness,
my salvation,
my hope.
Her cancer is quenching my thirst.
This cure is so sweet
please poison me…
Don’t Murder Me.
I’m fragile
Why do I feel infinite?
I don’t shy away from oblivion
but I’m scared of her end.
When it arrives, my lungs will come apart
and I won’t care enough
to tie them back together.
So right now all I can do is tie us
back together.
I’ll string us as one, with some celestial lights
And our ash will harden
Right over our eyes.
Tonight we’ll lay down in a field of flaming flowers
And I’ll sleep with her
My mirror.
My monster.
We’re monsters
And freaks.
Statues who no longer have a reason to speak.
But still Hear each other.

 

 

 

 

Chance Walsh is an eighteen-year-old autodidact.  He has been writing since he could read and recently finished his first novel, The Dream Descent, which he co-authored with his mother.  He enjoys acting and has done a lot of theater. He’s also written screenplays and produced short films. His true passion is writing, and he wants nothing more than to be an author. He spends, arguably, too much time writing poetry and listening to music.

 

Molly Lichten is a young, talented photographer. View more of her work on Flickr and Facebook, or visit her website, Molly Lichten Photography.

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