Les Étoiles

This poem was part of a 30 day poetry challenge that I started a while ago, and then forgot about, haha. I've been meaning to start it up again in preparation for a poetry and short story compilation I'm putting together. But I really liked this one, and thought I'd share it!

---

There’s confetti in the air

And it falls against your skin,

Against my skin,

Little flakes of coloured rain

That dance on eyelashes,

On eyebrows,

On eyelids.

I can’t remember what we’re celebrating,

Whether it was the end of summer,

Or the birthday of a friend,

Or the death of another day,

It’s guts spilled across the sky

In brilliant splashes of red and orange,

And yellow and pink,

And ochre and coral,

And flax and burnt umber,

And geranium and toucan,

And all the obscure colours

With ridiculous names

That really have no meaning at all,

And I say that realists give them these names,

Because they desire understanding,

While the idealists are content

To accept them as colours alone,

Emotional receptors in our eyes,

And all that.

And you look at me and say,

“Quand les étoiles sortent je meurs."

The salt water horizon bobs before me

A splash against my wet face,

half submerged in some drowned world

I tread in the water with twirling arms,

Twirling legs,

Twirling toes.

I can’t remember where we’re swimming,

Whether it was in Calanque de Sormiou,

Or off the coast of Cayo Cochino Grande,

Or in Hanauma Bay,

Some distant beach,

And some distant ocean

Scattered with fish and rock,

And sharks and whales,

And seals and pelicans,

And millions of jellyfish,

And plastic and trash,

A mingled ecosystem of poison and beauty,

That’s slowly choking to death

Under the hefty weight of human tourism.

And I say that this ocean is the greatest,

That this sea is the purest I’ve seen,

That I could swim in these teal waters

Until they dyed my skin

The same pearly blue,

And you look at me and say,

“Quand les étoiles sortent je meurs."

Green light filters down through the leaves

And paints a spotted coat of lime

Across our cheeks,

Our arms,

Our legs,

I can’t remember why we’d gone there,

Under those woody stumps

With crowns of leaves.

Perhaps to get away from the bustle of life

To slow things down,

T be painted by light and trees.

A projection of refracted sunlight

As it tries to feed the chlorophyll

So the molecule can spew out

Adenosine and triphosphate,

That nicotine adenine dinucleotide phosphate,

And split that drop,

Of stores rain

Into oxygen and hydrogen.

Breathe in,

Breathe out.

Breathe in,

Breathe out.

An exhale of air

To shiver the fronds of unfurled ferns,

To twirl wild-flowers on their spindly stalks

To disturb the depressed descent

Of seedpods on the sheltered wind

And I say that our breathe is a kiss

Upon the woods of our ancestors,

We come and we bless them with our presence

For a moment in time,

A perfect moment among this cloned wood

So that it can remember who we were

Not who we are.

Some new age shit.

And you look at me and say,

"Quand les étoiles sortent je meurs."

The sky lit up with a million fireflies

All stuck in the black canvas

Like it was sticky black paint

And they were a million fireflies.

And I realize my metaphors have become tired

And perhaps overused,

But I ramble on about stars being fireflies

And darkness being black paint

Until the night is just one giant metaphor

And both of us are sick of it.

I can't remember why were there,

Whether we’d wanted to see the stars,

Or were drawn out by the cool night,

Or if I just needed to throw out

Another bad metaphor into the universe.

But there we were,

Shivering in the dark,

Watching stars gently twinkle and fade

And I say something like,

All those fireflies are going out...

Or some shit like that...

I don’t even know anymore,

It all sounds the same.

Fill in this blank with your own damn metaphor,

I bet I’ve already come up with it,

Or if not me, someone else.

Someone else...

And you look at me and say,

"Quand les étoiles sortent je meurs."

#poetry