Machines in Decay

Forget what we've been told. Weeds grow in our homes and our minds are crushed like soft fruit in machines

[huariqueje]

Untitled , Out of Twilight - April Gornik , 1982 .

American , b. 1953 -

Oil on canvas , 147 x 259 cm.

[machinesindecay]

led by woman tortured, forgiven mother and daughter earth and moon sinister ends beautiful beginnings circular like the womb

she comes to me, myself, a new femininity a world she grew mine is a home hers is the earth she plants seeds that already bloomed

[thewindowofthesummerhouse]

Rovina Cai

[machinesindecay]

you slip away like silk through my fingers gather on a lake drift far from the peer toward a setting sun (you always were a night creature) the trees behind me whisper what we used to be an illusion in a dream a wish, a hope that never came to be and though I see you, drift toward that horizon, my fingers are cold my hands are empty and I am alone. I always will be.

[machinesindecay]

an aging sun caresses eucalyptus racing hearts, sugar sweet iridescent wings flap wildly while a chilling breeze sweeps thoughts toward dancing trees I am alone, but never alone in a glass orb looking outward silent voices echo into nothing rippling with life, breathing the hills exhaling with relief that someone sees them existing I am just existing. I have no need.

[machinesindecay]

orange bathes in waves sun facade my ship sails down black concrete swim swim thickets creep in never-ending drift toward a never-end whoosh, whoosh orange flickers my warning, omen: turn around, now mahogany dusk lifts like steam heat creeping toward me never-ending sleep or a never-ending dream sailing over black concrete watching for a cliff an escape disappearing act turn around, now I can’t find the strength.

[machinesindecay]

Petals on her grave, she never asked for them. You didn’t know which color was her favorite, but you knew her laugh in Spring of ’05, you knew she skipped class to feel alive, You knew she wrote poetry where it didn’t belong, on bathroom stalls, smudged ink inside the palm, itching under the skin, tattooed rebellion.

She wants to leave town, get out of her head you said goodbye, but didn’t want it to end, she left before you figured out what you meant, she said she “always floats away with the wind,” like the petals you brought, tossed onto her grave, they dance and drift and scatter away.

[mineisforever22]

sometimes the rain

cleanses the wound

other times

it seeps in, building

a cathedral of grief

[machinesindecay]

Today smells old and I feel young. Where have I heard this song before? Something lost sparks up the sky. Something forgotten turning rotten, and I'm transported to a time when there was still blue in your eyes, when my mind wasn’t ravaged by grief, when we exchanged beautiful words and breathed each other in like we were all that existed. And I’ve lost you, but I’ve lost me too, and some days I am young again wading through memories I haven’t felt in so long. Maybe this is heaven, to remember. Maybe this is time moving backward and forward We are past and future, but mostly we are present. Mostly, we are figments of dreams we barely remember. Mostly, I’m a fragment, and you are my whole picture.

[machinesindecay]

silver soft warm waves shadow play blinding, awake in a shallow grave dirt walls crumble clouds race above me you never really knew me maybe you were always afraid so you had to bury me and I’m not angry at what you do to me you are nothing, but this? this is everything… the air is fluctuating, rippling like I’m under water, floating, weightless like a feather suspended a breath, an exhale, a moment and you are outside it.

[machinesindecay]

Static. You were the in between, buzzing with a fervor I could never quite see, I could never quite be. I could never quite reach, could never grab hold. You never grow old, and I’m so terrified, alone in a field, enclosed by the woods you are lost in. But you find yourself time and time again, in the in between, the static. I could never see you past the trees, yet you’re burned into my memory.

[machinesindecay]

Our hearts are beating but I see our ghosts drinking from the places we’ve been before. Dancing like our hearts aren’t broken, like our past isn’t holding us hostage, specters isolated to moments of beauty, protected from all the brutal endings, the damage, the hurt, the longing for a time, a place, three hearts, one life that both ended and kept going. Our hearts are beating but they’re charred by the fires of hope and love and loss. Our ghosts, our echoes, are freer than we ever were. Shielded, so they’ll never have to pay that cost.

[machinesindecay]

our souls became nothing but cuts and bruises. our love became nothing but broken promises.

[machinesindecay]

Purple and gold light up the sky, then trail down to earth, but the fireworks don’t reflect in your eyes which are grey and stormy, glazed over with time, and this is no celebration, no fairy tale ending, we’re aging and fading and grieving, dark thoughts parading through broken minds and shattered hearts scattered below us, joining the ashes of beauty that once lit up this blackened sky, now drifting over water, carried off to some place we can’t find.

[aqua-regia009]

Prey of Ravens, 1888 - oil on canvas — Marceli Harasimowicz (Polish, 1859-1935)

[machinesindecay]

Winter was so long ago, yet so close, like the ice in your eyes that thawed in summer — an ocean quieted by fall.

If you freeze over, a renewing cycle, I must believe all we’ve lost will renew all that died will birth again either here or there, either us or them a longing never quenched a love never frayed — I wear you around my shoulders to brace for the chill, the shortening of days.

Heartbeats slow as cold pierces skin, waiting for them, waiting for Spring, hibernate ’til death denying each breath we were given yet forced to take. Our love delays more grief. Our breaths create more pain.

I was doomed long ago, when the ice in your eyes froze me to the bone, and the Spring of their love birthed new souls, brought us to our knees discovering a faith we never believed.

Our hearts beat but a moment before stilling in the dark. I yearn for a spark, a sign of them and a wish for us: This isn't the end. Our love isn't lost but transformed by a setting sun at a horizon we'll soon cross.

[expressions-of-nature]

by Aaron Burden