when you lived here, I was asleep while you walked
around the streets my taxonomies bent into squares
I could have told you that
no one gets here without somehow losing their stars
in this illusion navigators allow
for an hour at a time
while we stand at the bow
and let all of the darkness flow into us
 
when we started this, I was an alchemist's fear
and you were the clock of the cold
I could turn all your ticks into pheromone tears
but you couldn't measure them
no one tells you that love is the gate where you stood
until you leap off of it
for an hour at a time
while we gaze from this
overlooking the city we made of it
 
abbreviations can save us from saying the words
that would admit to this
there's a street where the lanterns glow blue at night
there's a way through an arch to our home
 
when you left here, I was a hole in the sea
that the doubt flooded into
no one told us the way to our margins was short
so we soon overshot them and
around the streets our complacencies filled with these stalls
we shop for our memories
paying ghosts to be
what we should have seen
could have been us escaping from mezzanines
 
now this bridge where we meet is the city's last vow
to show us our bandages
we can walk to the park where the snow is like foam
and sit on the bench where we
first discovered that hope is the way that you change
until you lose faith in it
letting ghosts take your
place in all of this
til you stop letting love be the end of this
 
abbreviations can save us from saying the words
that would admit to this
there's a street where the lanterns still sing to you
there's a way you can always come home
 
 
[Devised, played and produced (sic) with DM1, GarageBand and an iPad on a night train from New York to Boston, sung a couple weeks later looking out over glittering Stockholm on St. Lucia's night.]