These Untethered Affections

I left you and not just you--left us--when I ran out of love ran out of gas on the desert road ran out of my mind south of the great fire-breathing lakes that spat their old-age reminders that weve got an ancient gun to our heads and were holding the hammer and I saw the sun sear the rise of Taranaki and they said there was a Taniwha there and I laughed didnt believe it but then it was there in the road when I spun it out into the bush steed in the Kauri and me lying newborn-like in the cold road under the dark sky with the bright stars thatve watched me since I was newborn-like and then it was there its eyes were some crazy thing and it carried a stick its skin like an old tanned flag waving even though theres no wind anymore the shuffling and coughing and hacking and drunk of bathtub rum demon that lives in all the countryside here. Remember the time I almost drowned almost saving that kid that no one loved just off the bow of a man-o-war in the man-o-wars and he pulled me under to keep himself above and down there I saw the shapes of the sea these sea things gliding on the bottom just waiting for me to fall to them and I almost did felt all peaceful-like and I could have just drifted to the sand which doesnt look gold but teal and let their barbs into me I let everyone elses barbs into me why not the seas? Were sea people on a ship not moving any longer grounded home ship in the sea surrounded by the crashing ocean that you can look at and see nothing but nothing and I know the sea is what I loved most and then I didnt even have love for it anymore no love for the caps and the glass green windows that reflected the sun into me travelled the long black night into me into my heart and hands and lips and I put it into everyone else and I slipped it into some chicks and they knew there was something special in me but then let it go still; no I left when my love ran out when I was just a rat on a sinking ship and I jumped ship and went on the tide and sailed to the bad-lands and loved the good woman and she said come with me if you want to dream and I said yes Ill come except she didnt know that I was already dead inside--just a corpse holding onto the last hand wanting to touch the rotting flesh of my loved skin. I abandoned you but you decided to stay because youve been here the whole time my woman in the dark Ive seen you standing in the snow outside the evergreens seen the mist shadows cling to you around the river behind our home and felt you trailing the tails of me in the forest the nasal indulgences you partake of me youve been here just not known it.