Work Text:
You are going to die, and you have
a bottle
and
a broken piano.
You are going to die, and you have
immortal longings
and
a heart full of bitter regret.
The piano cannot play, but
for once
the silence suits you.
(You look at him, and you think
I would have written you a sonata,
if I only knew how.
I would have written you an entire symphony.)
It’s a lie. You drink.
You abandon the piano.
You move to sit
elsewhere.
You drink.
(When you drink, you drink to drown.)
He has a letter, and
you envy him.
Perhaps he is as dead as you—
or will be, come morning—
when you shall all be dead together, but—
he has a letter.
You do not have a letter.
You have a bottle and a broken piano, and
you no longer have the piano.
(You look at him, and you think
I would have written you a thousand letters,
if only I had been farther away.)
You were always
too close, too
afraid to stray too far
for fear
you’d lose him—
and so you were always looking up up up.
(And he would never have read your letters anyway,
only
used them as kindling
for his revolutionary fire.)
You think Patria is
very old and very ugly
and probably not worth saving.
But he loves her, and
to him
she is beautiful.
And that is why you find him
so beautiful.
You cannot love a country, but
you can love a Revolution.
A Revolution is
golden and gorgeous and
gone too soon.
They drink too, but
none of them can drown like you can.
You have practiced drowning before.
You have done it all your life.
It is
second nature.
Your lungs fill up and
you bury your heart in sleep and
your mind sinks
down
down
down.
(It is better, you think,
to drown in drink
than to drown in him.)
You look at him, and you think
I would have written a sonnet on your eyelashes
an epic for your cheekbones
an ode to your ass—
yes—
and a dirty limerick
about your smile.
This—
this much is true.
You have tried.
But you are
no poet
and your attempts are
plodding and singsong
and end up sounding like a children’s rhyme—
mocking and maudlin—
and somehow they all end the same.
(I loved a Revolution, duly
Though my heart is soaked and black
I loved a Revolution, truly
Which never loved me back.
And I would die for this Revolution
If the Revolution only asked.)
He doesn’t ask.
You drink to drown.
(Instead, you sleep.)
(You look at him, and you think
Do you permit it
and he looks at you and
smiles.
And you are very afraid
but he is
very beautiful
and it feels like you have
just come up
out of the water
gasping for breath
and calling his name.)