She wants to teach you how to scream without screaming, or,
at least,
how to hear the sounds that go unheard.
There are ghosts that live in the spaces between her teeth and
they like soft things, like to take the words
out of her mouth and hold them.
You have to listen to the corners of her eyes, look for steel, look for
a fox tail, a flash of red
against the brush.
You have to listen to the subtle things.
She wants to bring you to the planetarium show; she’s painted over
the lenses on the projector with
shades of almond and tea rose mixed with
perfume; if you look closely it makes
a difference.
Your hand pushes against the door but the lock sticks;
you can hear an ambient track, can tell
that there’s something there. If only you’d
pressed your eyes to the crack between the door, if only you’d
seen it. As she dreams the shapes on the ceiling morph and change,
flashes of anger, of beauty.
You ask her where she’d gone in the morning and she answers with her eyes.
She wants to show you something, she says, and wades out
into the sea. The waves
swallow up her figure, and she stops
to marvel at the feel. The sunset shimmers into stars, and it looks
different from behind her eyes.
You wonder how long ago you missed the beat.