First posted November 2022.

The last dream I had before the nightmares took hold was white. Sheets of undisturbed snow as far as the eye could see, and seagulls circling above the evergreen forest. I could not bear the stillness even then, even in my dreams, and woke up gasping for chords. My blood was too near the surface. Without arms to hold me I fell into the sound.

I remade my spine in pounding beats and pulsing screams. Bones cracked and splintered and stuck through my skin. Still, they propped me up in delicate parlours of crystal and sugar. Razor wire lined the ballrooms. You and I bled from matching wounds.

Your fingers danced on strings and I watched for minutes, hours, weeks, years. I wore my eyeliner for three days and it smudged your fingers when you wiped black tears from my cheek. We were too good for that town. We were blankets of lava crawling across corn fields.

I watched bats fill the sky, flooding out from beneath the bridge. It didn’t seem possible that so many of them could have all been hiding in the same small space. Then I went home and watched your curls get stuck in your smile and wondered where I had been keeping so much love.

Last night I dreamed of silence. I woke up in your room flooded with the comfort of relentless rhythm, the towers of noise rushing through us like waves. Your arms tightened around me, wrapping me in yesterday’s cologne and sweat and brimstone, and you asked if I wanted you to play me a song.