Runaway Dreams

she thinks she sees you on the telly, running away again, reflected ghost in the panes of glass beside the boys you would have liked
the boys heroes that run down the street with chairs crates & crowbars
shoos the kids outside, rewinds & painfully goes back

was it you

you with your Lamborghini dreams
low slung dress, sequined & hollowed out spine
carved from arching backwards with lips apart and folding in two to rub blistered heels
on the way back from the dance
damn those heels - the ones you saved for begged for stole for
you left her in a country pub with the tab to pay
she sat sipping cheap shiraz - clipped red nails stone chipped skin freckled frayed forlorn
your blood wondered where you'd gone
imagined you with arm extending - dark highway city bound better life bound

you

you could have had a better use for the gold that slapped itself across the line of trees on the other side of the railway line in the late afternoon light
for the admiration of magpie crowds who warble warble in aurelian dawns
or the cool creek draped like a silk kimono over bare legs in the summer
sparkling tinsel shawls draped over stolen pine branches

the left behind sister folds the kids pajamas over the twine that ties itself in knots
where the front porch chime twinkles in autumn gales
she notices nothing pairs and everything is frayed
rewinds to when you were a little girl with mismatched socks - with stiched unicorns
& one with a tiny heart
hurts as she wonders where you bin these last few years

wonders if you got your sparkle dreams, arms dripping with chains of fools
gold 24 carot oh my gold jangling circles down fake tan arms
He took you to Fiji, you scrawled smudged purple ink
hard diamond glinting, she imagines, island sun piercing the rock on your left hand
on the other side, white sails - a lie of a post card because you would have signed it

she burnt your scrapbooks last winter on your birthday, the ones with your longings for escape, the cut outs of princes and towers
the love heart lasso the imaginary beaus paper mansions & illusions
of silly girls dreams, she knows

now, because she saw the city lights once, looking for you
they had nothing on the spread of stars, that bright twilight one in pink skies
the lanterns strung between the blue gums, fireflies clinging to muddy dark banks
and the bonfires in winter, sparks dying on wet grass

what's happened, they ask, when she returns mascara running
runaway plans runaway girls runaway dreams
she rubbed acetone hard, the cotton balls fell away crimson
you left her there and stole the last of the silver, so she hitched a ride home & life became

without you

she searches every filmed angle
she was sure you were there, no sequins sparkles or handsome man with hand in the small of your back

oh get back to halycon fields where the shadows don't come in until it's very late
and the cicadas are rubbing their wings
toes in the riverbed and stolen cider and mum's benson & hedges
gilded foil inserts sharp origami'd into ibis

the edits remove all trace of the long gone sister in reflection - mistaken, perhaps
now she can only focus that young young man blue flash blue eyes dripped crimson blood on Sydney streets after killing a girl in a hotel
they pinned him down with a milkcrate, there was a man there with a crowbar roaring, shouting you killed a girl you dog

you killed a girl

who are you, he says
he doesn't know where he is
she doesn't know where you are

his eyes are blue
your eyes were blue.

Image by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

I'm not sure where this came from. Yesterday's papers were filled with a man who walked down a Sydney street dripping blood from knifing a woman in the back, and killing a woman earlier. Men rushed down the street to corner him and stop him, pinning him to the ground, a milk crate over his head. He looked so young and so confused, and his eyes so very blue. Whilst they cried terrorist as they always do, he was just a young man in need of help, and my heart went out to him, as well as his family. One guy with a crowbar was ready to kill him - it was frightening. Compassion for all beings is hard to practice when they commit such atrocity, and my heart also goes out to the young woman who died - but I wasn't able to forget his eyes. And then this poem. I don't know. Poetry is a strange thing.

I do hope Partiko bloody lines this poetry up properly. If it looks like one long paragraph, I hate Partiko. It won't look like that on Steempeak. I hope!