I've still got sand in my shoes
And I can't shake the thought of you
I shake it all, forget you
Why, why would I want to
I know we said goodbye
Anything else would've been confused but I wanna see you again.

-Dido

"i'd never hurt you," He says with his arms around my waist,
His kisses on my forehead.
"i'm so glad you came,
i was so lonely and sad,
But you're here instead."

And he sits alone with the drink in his hands,
"i think i know you from somewhere," he tells me,
Taking huge gulps from his cup of cheap beer.
"i think i know how you think,
How you'd rather see me crying than laugh,
How you say all the things about the paint and the sky."

"There was one time when i stole their hearts,
i'll admit.
But it was accendental,
They didn't know me either."

And that's when i become distracted by your voice and eyes,
Like the falling leaves when i ran away from home for hours on end,
Kissing the rain falling on my face,
Your stars falling into the palms of my hands.
You shake me from your memory,
Telling yourself "She never saw through my body,
She never heard what i said,
Just what i sang."

He wishes he could draw my sleeping face,
That he could touch me when they're around.
"But i'm too afraid," he whispered into my tangles of hair.
"i'm afraid they'll see."

"But i don't care," i say.
"You don't have to explain anything,
Just be the one who tells me how you love how strange i am,
How i'm the sunsetting in your rear view mirror above the overpass."

So he walks three steps behind me over the frost covered pavement,
Sits in my car as i scrape its windows in the morning,
Killing time with me because he never sleeps anymore.

"i know i've seen you somewhere before,
Inside her eyes,
Inside her skull,
Pounding against my chest making me cry for her in my sleep," he says,
His breath smelling of alcohol and cigarettes.

And in the end,
When the world is continually falling apart at my fingertips,
When i'm laughing and cracks are forming,
Taking you farther and farther down,
The smell of sulfur and ash dancing through your hair,
i'll be outside,
Watching your sky falling all around my face.
And i cannnot feel my heart beating because you make it so cold outside in the snow.

He sits alone in the wet grass as i listen to rain dripping from trees and rooftops.
"Where should i go from here?" he asks looking back at me.
i light my cigarette.
"Wherever you want to" i say through a puff of exhaled smoke.
Just like that he's gone into the black shadow that he is.

Inside they are trying to speak to the dead.
"Is anyone here?" one says.
They quietly wait for a reply.
"You're spelling nothing," is what we always tell them.
"Where is Jak?"
"Here."

Here, it smells like blueberries and blue wild flowers,
Turkish Carnation incense.
All i can hear is the electric powered clock and the oracle tracing letters onto the board.
"You speak forever in gibberish, moving glasses with their hands," i think.

"Remember when you used to take me downstairs and thought that i was thinking nothing,
remember?" i ask him.
"Yeah, i thought you never cared.
i thought there was nothing inside that little messy skull of yours,
tracing daylight covered trees onto the window of my back door with your fingers.
i remember."
He holds onto me again,
moving the hair from my face.
"i like being able to see the color of your eyes," he tells me.
"i never noticed how they look.
How it's like the place where flowers would grow,
Or deep beneath the grass and roots of trees,
The place covered in limestone and mosses.
Sometimes,
When i think about it,
i can see your eyes blossoming."
He kisses my face and watches me sleeping on his couch,
Covered in Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd lights.

"Do you remember the way the voice sounded?" He asks me in his half-sleep.
"They were like the voices of the trees.
Sometimes,
i remember,
i could see constellations and places that aren't on this planet.
Once i painted his picture.
The Stars in his Veins, i called it."

She stood outside motionless in the middle of the street light and pouring rain.
"Is anyone here?" She whispered.
"Where have you gone?"

She stands on a chair leaning over the balcony.
"If i try hard enough, do you think i can fly?" She asks.

The fragments of words drip from her mouth,
Falling on his pillow reflecting light.
"No one ever asks about my stories anymore," she wants to tell him,
But instead she tells him about how Pegasus threw Bellepheron to the ground.
"He dies, you know."

"You should see the stars," she says.
She wants to tell him about how they look up close,
About how their voices sound.
"It's too early for those things.
Secrets are what you say to the people you love." She thinks.

"i used to know someone who knew nothing about everything."
She said, stumbling on words.
"One day i woke up, and he wasn't there anymore.
He had fallen into this thing,
Like some black bottomless ocean.
Sometimes i think i pushed him in."

He squeezes her hand a little,
As if to say,
"Don't push me in too."

"But i was afraid of everything when i knew him."

They can find her outside sometimes,
Watching the sky changing colors,
Singing songs about hunters and lovers,
Writing down all the thoughts she wants to keep in a little book.
"Sometimes," she always says,
"Sometimes,
If i listen closely enough,
i can hear music.
Sometimes i think it's just me.
Sometimes i think it's just them."

In her car, her breathing comes out in little clouds.
"Do you think he'll ever come back?" He asks, letting his fingers wrap around her's.

"i don't know.
It doesn't matter."