Infant Cities

Purple memories slide into the caves of my thought,

Occupying the damp places where effigies of you

Used to gather around unnatural flames reaching

Out from the very middle of the puddled floor.

.

It was pragmatic to turn the cave into something

More useful than a shrine to the faceless dead,

The uninhibited dreams of rolling in the grasses

And fucking until the stars were tired of twinkling.

.

The purple has poisoned the construction site.

My skin is covered in goosebumps and I'm sure

That somewhere inside this cave I've tipped a tin

Of something so poisonous it's too late for me.

.

My thoughts ruined the infant cities pressing

Out of the slate and reaching skyward towards

Those gorgeous, dripping stalactites as though

The world owed them something as grand as survival.

.

It didn't owe them anything and it knew it.

The cities didn't gasp as they withered and they

Didn't whimper as their buildings fell one by one.

Soft iridescence, purple, covered their shadows.

.

It ripples now with the memories in the middle

Of what could be misconstrued as a shrine

To a new kind of dead, an ideal I strangled

With my own hands, my own stupid fears.