BEB: Midnight

by Aden Choate

Oh! I know too well how good this feels

A flap bent over, ornamenting this shaded haunt

Grown and curated to hide the center of

A meaningless world

There is a song of honeyed milk and cinnamon kisses

Smoky lavender dreams

Hustled down the avenues of the people we are

Tired mad restless

We’re hung up on the lovers we don’t know

Consumed with everything and nothing at all

Soon to be forgotten

Desperate to be seen

I wonder if he’s noticed me

Does he remember too?

The way our bodies twisted together in intimate anonymity

October nights bleeding from one into the other

If the moon is defined by her own absence,

What does that mean for you and I?

The people we were fade to become

Broken photographs, bent over and forgotten

The grey chases black blue green

Then the color bleeds and we all become angels

Somehow we grow or we don’t

The ropes that tie us here—bring us back—are strong

Stronger because at least they don’t suffer

But there’s beauty in our exquisite pain

In our humanity

I see that river afire

Then milk-blue and crying

But oh does that river feel

Oh does that river live and understand

Its nature and our own

In a way we never can

I can see the blank wall

I can see the silhouettes talking

I’m not interested in what they have to say

I’m only interested in the fact that this is the last stop

My moveless mind sees motion

Sees how this too will soon lose its meaning

But for some and for now

This is the world