Down The Rabbit Hole

A writing blog for the poetry of Brannon E. Austin.

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Halt The Earth

Halt the earth. Tell the universe that today we take no visitors. Nothing is shut or silenced, closed or open, Just stopped for now, for a moment it is still. Let no air in or out, let it not be needed just for now. Let everything be truly silent, frozen but alive. Today we need no sun, tonight we need no stars, No guiding light or darkness, nothing forward or behind. You need not your thoughts or memories, Your regrets or failures, idea of legacies. For now you need nothing for everything is here.

Take it in for a moment.

Don’t blink. Don’t breathe. Life is too full of energy to waste it on dreams, For now let them go, let them dry, let them free. Be still in those lines, be stone where you stand. Be the one grain shining, without need of the sand, Today should be the last day you worry again. For life is too short to live without running, But to live without stopping is worse. Now that you’ve found someone to treasure, Hold them and halt the earth. -B.E. Austin

Written for my mother’s wedding to my step dad on February 25th, 2012.

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We Exhaled The Night

Wishing we had longer, like the daylight of your summers, Just watching the air stretch around the sun. Why must each night feel closer? Each day feel “done”? We insist on being as finite as the space between us, When we know our best moments are all unspoken. Physical, yet intangible, like we know there’s nothing better.

And what struggle it is, when time blends with distance, Too much when far and too few when closer.

And the nights, That are bad when cold & worse when lonely. Almost unending agony, a cruel trick of light, That fades faster than a winter sunset.

But not all is lost. We keep together in murmurs & smiles, And seek to make the short nights longer. Never fear it won’t happen again, just revel that is happened first.

For it is not so much goodbye as goodnight, And only a matter of “when”.

-B.E. Austin

Written overseas in a surprisingly sunny London October day in 2015.

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She, the satellite.

Clear is the light at the point where the sky broke, And those that had prepared for resolution instead saw revelation. Young fingers grew old as they stretched through time, Eager to find the point they used to know, Reaching far back through the future as though the past had answers. Gone are the moments of clarity, The omnipresent confidence that belied so much of your fear, But led you to where was comfortable. I thought I knew her arms once, But the thought sits lost like sunlight behind stars. Alight, But so far that no journey could reach it. Mostly, I miss your sweetness. The sugar in your tongue that turned your lips to caramel and my knees to butter. Those words that melted the air around you, That smile so eager as your infatuation. A place as sacred & as secret as our dialogue, That paradox of love. My par amour, no more, As much as I’d ever had it. Seems as though the light eternal does indeed fade, With neither wisdom or religion enough to save the doomed. The sunshine fades, like cinders in ashes, And all we are left as is dust. No longer love, just waste around satellites, Where not even the light will greet us.

-B.E. Austin

Written in the early winter of 2014 or 2015, can’t quite remember.

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Silence

That single moment, where the moisture in the air spikes softly with the tension. Lights dim like tired eyes filled with lust, Thinking of both sleep and sleeping, Shaking in-between two different needs, The same human condition: to die or die with. Sighs set to a smooth rhythm, each set of muscles fretting with anticipation wishing the last moment would come as quickly as hands do now, But still, they slow; all part of the fun. The smiles curve, still anxious with anticipation, Bitten lips become wandering hands, as their meetings do shake the ground beneath them. A soft seizure, a shake, a quiver, a tremor.  Not much, but enough to shift the old bones from their sockets into joints they’re familiar with. Moisture rises with the moment as all but the most necessary sounds are married to the silence. Each breath accepted, each sigh to sign the next site of pleasure. Lips slide in sync with each other, one pushes, the other pulls as they exchange weight. Saliva swapped back & forth while tongues greet their respective points. Repeat. Entrenched, enraptured. Over faster than expected as eyes fill with exhaustion, Collapsing in a hot mess, a heap of sweat & salt. One swallows hard, the other harder. And before the smiles can finish they slumber.

-B.E. Austin

Written in the late summer of 2014