giddy on fire
giddy’s been spending all her time near the fire lately
but that part is easy to explain
slow burning
amped up
her brain does it easy
the fading light of the Back Then
melted in a spoon with the thrashing nights
it blends together until his head in her lap
coming down
is bright and it burns
her back against the garage door
his blue eyes red with premature aging
slow dying
white tshirts black jeans
until he’s in flames and gone
until she’s holding smoke and writing letters that won’t be answered
it blends together with friday nights in the barn
band practice in the basement
clumsy love on a dirty black futon
it blends and burns and giddy remembers when she was she
when she was nineteen and…
giddy was giddy once
giddy was free
but always in the arms of disaster
Back Then
back when giddy was she despite disaster and
the sky was partly cloudy but mostly blue
back then she was sunshine and bliss
now it’s all manmade white and gray and she searches for god along the highway
she searches for water and wind but
at 9am the jets appear
leave white scars along the horizon
slash the sun and zigzag back
giddy can’t help but remember
puffy white cuts laid out with precision on the end table
she’d sit like ice and watch him breathe it gone
that was before the jets
she sets them alight in her mind but they don’t come careening
like the rest of them did
she longs for disaster
remembers other white scars
giddy sits by the fire these days to forget
to drag out every old scene
playing on loops on the ceiling at night
white faces, then red, then blue
giddy thinks of america
how american they were
and how like america to go up in flames
she pulls those scenes out and destroys them
but Back Then
back when giddy was pure light and blushing
back when he asked her
before disaster
revealed itself in stolen bills, dirty spoons
Back Then it was golden
pure stillness and fall leaves
giddy smells summer charcoal
winter defeat
giddy’s been thinking a lot about renewal
of phoenixes and other myths of survival
giddy sits in the arms of disaster
like always
but he doesn’t hold her back
