Second Thought

I can feel it coming on like deep waves, electric undercurrents, pulses and purple midnight sky. I'm going to dictate into the keys the words I can breathe when we ramble where we're less tied together.

Take heart! Michael zero, that one, Jesse two, Michael three. I'm going to weave your names into the tapestry of the words between the lines and I'm going to hear whispers and wait for girls and cross my toes and kiss your neck. Jacob, Jesus! I could write a benediction for every anxiety because there's a whole new holy book waiting to be found and it will tell you the truth if you shine the light and we go our way.

Take a word from the old text, all travels and returns in another skyline: old makeup, Peruvian blanket, curled skirt, cursive bloodlines, your great neon shoulders in the eighties and now your bare skin on the pages. Tell me all your numbers and I'll write you in impermanent fashion and you'll crumple it and recycle it and months from now I'll find the key and unlock the channel between our hands and our minds.

You've made me acknowledge the devil in me
I hope to God I'm talkin' metaphorically
Hope that I'm talkin' allegorically
Know that I'm talkin' about the way I feel
And I've never known a girl like you before
- Edwyn Collins, "A Girl Like You"