‘Climb these mountains with me!’ I yell in her face, jumping up and down. Jump with me! Jump up and touch the moon. Land in the day to come. There is no day to come but today. 

            ‘I’m not climbing! Here now there never. I cannot see above the clouds. You’re wasting my time.’

            ‘Why are you such a cranky brat all the time. Your time is as much nothing as it is everything you resolve to revolve it around. Aren’t you dizzy little P? You’ve stopped dancing. Stopped it entirely. But somehow you’re still spinning in this stupid resolution, this distant ticking of time. It’s only in your sweet little mind buttercup. Time doesn’t tick. Every single circle will come back to the past to find the future. How can you determine when it should begin? How will you schedule who you move for? How will you reconcile with your soul if you don’t move for yourself? Fuck your time you are mine! Climb with me!’ 

‘I’ll slip. I always fall back into what has been created for me. What? Do you think freedom is all rainbows and butterflies? It’s scary as all hell. Sitting alone takes time. Moving for your soul and your soul alone is a crime in this world. Criminalized and abandoned by the bodies surrounding our tender fleshy bones. Who will hold us when we pull our knees to our chest and scream like a baby? I can’t have my way! I can’t have her arms around me, so I want nothing. No! Nothing at all! These bodies have stopped finding each other’s eyes, so they die. No! Please! Don’t leave me alone in the sea of dead eyes carried by living thighs. Look how they move. So fast! Straight to the point, no time to find a need; every need sacrificed for the idea behind another’s eyes. What are we seeing if it’s not through our own sight? Who remains alive? Wail like a jackal at the top of your lungs. I need to hear you! Look at me! I need to find you before all of desire dies. 

            ‘I don’t want you anymore. The light has let go. We’re not kids anymore babycakes. We put the bikes away. It’s dark where I chose to go. You are nowhere in sight.’

            ‘I am so close, I swear to you. Where are you looking?’

            ‘Jerusalem.’ 

            I reach out in this pitch-black tepee. She’s a fingertip out of my reach. She begs to come closer. She begs me to hold her. The tables have turned and I smile but no one sees but me. I ache for her lips. I listen to her cry. I don’t ask why. There is no why. I don’t say anything at all.

            ‘Say something!’

            ‘No! I have fallen to your feet time and time again. You kick. You get stuck in regretting a moment that hasn’t even seen the breath of life yet. Yesterday.’ I keep my arm extended. I wait. She breathes heavy out of spite. Out of desire. Out of glory. She hears me waiting, even as I refuse to move. She feels the power she knows she holds. She peels the fear off layer by layer by sticky shit stained layer. Her voice is deep. Her tone is pure power. The might of it sits upon my shoulders and pushes me on my knees. It’s still black. We still see nothing. We are still dreaming. Move! She hears me fall.

            ‘Get up. Stop being such a lazy baby. If you want me, take me. I am to be taken only. This is the nature of my desire. I stare and wait patiently. I beg.’ 

            I pray. I demand that the story be told my way. I say ‘you will take my face between your palms and shove my tears into your naked stomach. My lips will slip down your thighs. You will cry. You will try to leave. You will crawl from my feet. You will return. You will see the warrior that I am. You will fight beside me. You will remember forgetting. You will remember everything else. The stars will become a history lesson. The sea will feel only of me. I will seep under your pores and sink into your precious guts. And it is there that I will remain forever your queen. It is there I will see you again. Freed.