alternatively, i remember to stay:

so i’m drinking with tempests in a motel room, lightning bugs on the lampshades / and the stupid tele starts ringing. ’nd says something kinda-sorta shattering like:

“& i wish i could steer you off the highway and tell you it’s okay to to take the side roads.”

& it’s like / man, do you even know what you’re wishing for? / i don’t exist, babe. i’m not real. i am a specter held to this plane by the string of this seatbelt. / i will take us both hurtling right past the speed limit and if you try to open the door i’ll laugh and laugh and / thank you for coming along with me for the ride. it’s the last thing i’ll see. / & you’ll ask me what that means.

but it still sounds like: “& i want to catch you with both arms and pluck you out of the sky & parachute you with me down to earth & tell you that we can stay here for a quiet while (we can lay on the grass and watch the sky from here)” / & now it’s starting to look like a mirage, one of those halfway to the afterlife visions you start seeing when your thread of a heartbeat starts getting pulled taut. / i want you to catch me, but i don’t ask it. / i want to stay here with you, but i think my roadmap is upside down. / & now i’m thinking that i want you to ask me how to stay still, / but you can’t teach a falling object to grow wings. / all things plummet like a birthright, in the end.

“i want to place the entire world in your glowing fingertips & tell you you deserve every damn thing in it / and i want to tell you that it’s ok to not be ok” / and i think i’m so close to letting the rain fall. my eyes sting, & it’s like / you don’t have to ask me what that means, do you?

“& sometimes i want to say this in the flesh so you know i’m real and that we both sleep under the same moon at night” / we’re real? we’re real. / we’re real, we’re real. i am here & / i want to be real. God, i don’t want to fall alone. / make me real, tell me you can feel me. / press your palms to my cheeks and keep me on this planet. / i don’t want to be a part of the choir & it’s starting to turn into: / hold my trembling hands and tether me here & i want this to turn into / we are real. we are the ones who live.

“& i love you / & i want to tell you i love you (we can go find heaven together eventually)” / & it’s starting to look like / i’ll stay. i’m staying. / we are real, you are real, and i am staying, you dummy. as if i could / forget those lilies in that pond. / Christ. you made me stay. / & it’s starting to turn into the funny little fact that i think / i’ll always be the one who stays, if you ask me to. /