Music to Haunt to

You've given me exactly eight hours
of melodies and rhythms
to hum softly to myself
and mouth the words to
when I'm alone and unable to sleep
your songs nourish me in
the same way that a full night of dreaming
about your laugh and the curve of your back does,
which is to say that each time I hear "Ice Dance"
I awaken with my head full of dust
and my heart full of lust
and I wander through time like a sleepwalker
until I can get you out of my head
and replace you with a happier tune

"In Vise" and other works I could not translate

The past three nights

I dreamed you were crying.

You stained my doorstep with your tears on the first,

you lamented our fate by my hospital bed on the second,

and I led you and your lover to safety

from the storm of the century on the third

after assuring you that she would warm up

your cold feet, if only you'd ask her.

Still, I was not allowed to touch,

just like now.

I offer you my arms,

and when I think you'll accept them

I wake up wrapped around nothing,

longing to fall back asleep.

I have yet to determine whether these dreams mean

that you are in trouble

or that I am.

True love is a wedding dress with room for tentacles.

I would come back for you and only you.

After the shards scarred me

Mom and Dad left me for dead

Grinning guards barred my bedspread

They said I’d never be free

But in my cage I learned to sing

Songs of hope scratched on my cot

I built myself a pair of wings

Out of lullabies and coins and rot

In every song I sung your face

In every song I sung your taste

In every song I sung your flesh           

In every song I sung your breath

Day Terrors

a breathing pack of lies, 

i've watched them

eat their young

while sleepwalking;

they spit up bones

when they think 

no one is looking

(i'm looking).

a breathing pack of lies,
i've seen them do it;
they go down grinning
and come up again
covered in crimson,
still smiling,
a chemical white half-moon
against a red night sky
(they don't see me).

a breathing pack of lies, 

i watch them 

whether my eyes 

are closed or opened;

and when I hide

under the covers 

they believe

that i want to be found

(i just want to dream).

Schadenfreude, a melodrama

2 figures standing on bridge over a rushing river. One dressed in a wedding gown (BRÜNA), the other in funeral attire (BLUNDELLE). Both women look as if they are in their 20s. The ledge of the bridge should come just below the women's waists. 

BLUNDELLE: I knew you'd turn up here if I waited long enough.

BRÜNA: I'd hoped you'd be gone by now.

BLUNDELLE: What, and leave you behind after all of these years? I've put too much into this—into you—for that.

BRÜNA: It's been seven years, Blundelle. I'm better off without you.

BLUNDELLE: And what does that mean to me, Brüna? What could seven years possibly mean to me? It's not as if I'm aging. Time does not pass for me the way it does for humans, or maybe you've spent so much time among the living that you've forgotten.

BRÜNA: I'm not like you anymore. I've gotten better. I've fallen in love, and it's pumped some life back into me. I belong to Carlomann now. We'll be married soon.

BLUNDELLE: And does your loving groom know that you're here?

BRÜNA: No, he doesn't.

Night time

Nunca pinto sueños o pesadillas, Pinto mi propia realidad

I am asleep. Something, a sound, causes me to wake up in the middle of the night. I hear something outside, and I go out to the porch. There's a girl there. Her hair is long and brown. She is dressed in white, her face is in her hands, and she is crying. I want to comfort her, so I put my arms around her. I ask her what's the matter, but she doesn't answer. She just keeps crying. I tell her, "It's okay. It's all going to be okay." I examine her, trying to make sure she's not hurt. For some reason, I'm afraid she might be bleeding. I pull her hands away from her face and smooth her hair back, and that's when the crying stops, and I see that she has no face.

Tivoli (i lov iT)

In my dreams you work
at a movie theater, an old one,
and I go to see movies by myself,
hoping that you'll be the one
standing in the back of the
theater, while I sit in the last
row and pretend not to notice
that we are alone.