to the wound, add salt and lemon

“the world is ending!” i point at the sky and tug on your sleeve.

“don't you want to watch? it's so pretty! it's like fireworks, but blood and flies.”

your gaze sticks to your phone, too busy, and your arm pushes me away.

“stop that! the world isn't ending yet,” you say, annoyed. “it'll be a few more hours before then, so i have some work to do and a movie to watch first. and you still haven't cleaned your room, like i told you to.”

i groan at you.

from the fire in the alley, a girl walks up to take in the view from where we are.

“the world is ending, isn't it?” she says to me. i nod at her.

we stare at each other then up at the sky.

the little bottle of white flower oil on my father's bedside table is perfectly clear, with a drawing of innocent, green plants on the label and a deep blue cap on top. it's used to soothe pain. i look at it and immediately wish they made such a thing for the heart. humming a tune in my throat while writing, i realize: these are the only balms i know of.

(this is based on a drama i've been watching)

i tell you about: becoming my little brother's father, debt collectors, beatings, and being afraid to answer the door. you tell me that when you were young, you learned that real people aren't heroes or villains. you don't say that this surprised you, but i know it must have, or else you wouldn't have told me.

i don't know why this is surprising, but it is. it's only obvious when you say it out loud and think “oh, of course. silly me. what a dumb thing i've just said.” but it's okay. i don't think it's dumb at all. you were lucky to have learned this as a child. i am learning this only now, holding a gun.

i don't say a lot of things. that maybe i'm evil, that maybe we all are and we're just pretending that we're not. our job is to kick men begging on their knees. i stand in line and wait for orders. i tell the others that the coast is clear. i cover the boss' body with my body to hide him from death. i do what he says and he is the devil. i tell my inner child: “i'm sorry. i'm glad we will never meet.”

(#thebatman #poetry #poem) (other pov this time lol)

in your dreams, your hand runs up the side of his face and he doesn't smile, but he doesn't move away either. you stroke his mask, as if it were his skin, then tear it off. underneath, there's— nothing. you always wake up at this part. as if the reality of what it could be alarms you so much that your body can only jolt away from the idea.

you don't know why you bother. you're no fool, you understand the real appeal – and it /is/ the mask. there's no reason at all to dig beneath perfection. he stands like a statue on the other side of bullet-proof glass and pushes you away without touching you. he's dark water and the night sky reflected in it. you run your hand through it and it pours out between your fingers, because that's what it wants.

(#thebatman #poetry #poem)

you hate me. you bear your teeth and spit my name. you look like a little boy still, with that smile on your round baby-face and i can't help but wonder, do i look like that too? under the mask? do we still look like we did the day our parents died? will we ever get older?

you pace around inside your jail cell, wailing like a dying lion, tearing your hair out while i build a wall between us. i know about your fantasy but it's too late. you want this shadow, this endless and bruised night, but the dawn has already touched it and opened its eyes.

you sing an ancient song, sweet and high, just the way god likes it. an arrow of pure agony to my roaring heart. how dare you turn the eyes of time to this room, when it has not looked at either of us since that worst of days?

they made you sing as a child. they made me sit in a house so empty you could hear the gunshots echo in your head as if they would never stop. what i would have done to sing.

now, there's an apology inside of me, hiding in a cupboard. there are questions inside of me, banging up against the door which i keep closed with my body. i won't let them find their way to you.

this is not my fault. nor yours. this started so long ago that most have forgotten. so long ago that the earth and the water can't even say. here's what will be remembered: the whispers of it that haunt the city will fall into my hand someday. just like you did.

i feel like the weirdest person ever for not really liking poetry that rhymes... but it seems like thats also what most people assume poetry is, just nursery rhymes or song lyrics, when some of the best stuff doesnt rhyme at all in my opinion

edit: i've thought about this some more and i think that my apathy towards rhyme also has something to do with not caring about the auditory or vocal aspects of poetry either; i think music as an artform is more renowned for that. to me, poetry is, more than a bodily or aesthetic pleasure – a mental pleasure. what i like about it is that it expresses ideas (including sensory ones) that you don't find much of anywhere else. the form factor (aesthetics, the way the words sound, or how it sounds being spoken) don't matter to me as much at all. hope this makes sense somehow? i know other people probably disagree with this and that's ok.

the sky is a bright, dandelion white like the surface in a page of a coloring book left blank. we've been forgotten by something today. clouds envelop the town as sheep do, searching for fresh grass, ready to descend and eat the greenery down below that drinks up all the rain. i look out the window at the flooded road and think that maybe i was supposed to live near water, not here. i was supposed to live near a river thousands of years ago and fish there and wash my face there and stare at it like a mirror. but instead, i'm here and the water's come to me, as it sometimes does. maybe it's because i missed it but i didn't know that i did. but if i'm really hopeful, maybe it's because it missed me.