The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit
After sundown, before sleeping
I am the worst of me
I am a mess of these
Old themes and the murmur of half-dreams
Whisper seductively
And stage scenes, it’s
Fear fiction, these visions
Caught somewhere between delusion and prophesy
What I haven’t done
What I’ve wanted to
And what I fear you have
Becomes reality here
Bright lights in the young night
Keep to the beat
A classic party scene
Crowded and interesting
No love, no life, no history
Just touch, just chemistry, just
A roaring undercurrent
Simple and sensory
Young bodies, warm skin
Perfect symmetry and
It’s a moment
Harmless; it’s energy
It’s like medicine
It’s self-discovery, see
All the secrets I keep
Why are they secrets?
It’s only temporary
That fleeting feeling of warmth
Just a flash before the line gets blurry
Between a longing for more
Than what the body wants now and
What the body wants now more than anything?
Was it integrity
That kept my hands to myself
Or just the thought of getting
Too far ahead of you?
Was it that I got too tired of the consequence?
Or was I just scared?
I only know I never wanted to get left behind
No pauses, not a second guess
First a swaying, then a stumble, then a swagger
They’re just movements
Towards feeling
It doesn’t matter, neither hesitates to carry on
A kind of energy, sweat and block out everything to
Find every aperture and compel the animal parts
Fan flames, taste fruit, taste bitter fruit
Just trying to learn how all the wires in the body work
Just trying to feel it out, it’s like medicine
Find the healing in whatever bed they end up in
I want to feel it out
I want to know how it works
I want to know if it was worth it to worry
About the ghosts I feared
Would haunt the memory
About the damage that I’m sure the fear has done to me now
I want to know what it is
In me that won’t follow through
Those nights the instinct
Takes a hold of me and pushes too
Maybe it’s only that I’ve never gotten over you
Or am I still scared?
I see the church steps
A vision
Is there fiction in this one too? It’s true
I’ve made a tale of it here
Still it’s a little unclear
Who’s been haunting who
And time can
Be such a funny thing
Always moving to the future
Glorifying the past
And amplifying the pain
In frames of glass
So was our touch half as sacred as I’ve made it seem
Or just another fabrication of a half-dream?
Just those chemicals, the adolescent love
Just us trying to grasp onto meaning
Onto a purpose
Onto a sense that
Something spiritual releases when the feeling hits
And when the feeling hits
And in that moment, sparks and harps play out
A sweeping melody through fog and fantasy
And in that moment there’s an honesty instinctive and pure
But it departs like it came
Rapid and bearing no more
Than fleeting ecstasy of natural harmony