[Poem: "applesaucefingers" by Christopher Rashee-Stevenson]
"Do you remember when we were children?" You asked me
Yeah. I replied
We'd pick blackberries seven by seven at the edge of a deep wood
Beyond our purple tongues
And blue-dyed fingers
There were no rent payments there
Only a sea
Your violent simplicity
Something whispered
Something too fondly remembered
Like the feeling of someone licking applesauce from these ardent fingers
And there is still space
To share the emptiness with you
Traded in our peek-a-boos
For bigboy boots and curdled milk
Hey what the f** is that smell?
Don't you know it? Can you feel it?
The stench of a thousand childish things
Never accomplished before breakfasttime
I just wondered where all the roses had gone?
And would they ever grow again?
Tall like men as they did in our days
Where love was only Nickelodeon
And white lies found our lips
No longer made of gossamer
They were skin now. We are skin now
Now I pine for my presumed innocence
As one damned pined for drops of water
I hope we'll get back to the garden
The garden in which we're allowed to bleed freely
Now my head faces west
And I can hear my innocence
Wailing
To
Fellowship