And what of demons? What of blood that boils, what of trees that rise up from the earth and tower over every living soul that yearns to crawl into the mouth of God that rests above us, swallows and we’re gone.

 

I think I should get something for finding you, for saving you, for never saying ever that I’d let you go. I keep your bones locked up, your hair bundled tightly in all four corners of my blanket just like they said to, just like I felt was right. When you asked for liberty, I gave you death and I am not remorseful for it was your lifeless kiss that gave me up to higher sight and sound.

 

And if anyone else had seen what we had seen it would have been so clear, so clear that it was all my fault. I cannot guarantee you freedom, I cannot guarantee you life again, though different it may be, but I can guarantee you that I want, so badly, to be by your side regardless of what will come. Styx is too deep, my friend. Too strong for you to go it on your own.

 

We came from nothing but will return to something so much more.

How does she when she wakes? And lies alone among the live wires- Waiting for slippage. Is she embalmed or catatonic? Flared nostrils and pale demeanor she touches circuits to her tongue. Feels a lilting in her chest but her eyes are dry. Her thoughts are hard. Knees up, head back- Who sees us in this, our hour? It is not need that drives us, not lust that drives us. We are nothing if not satire but still we plummet. What fault? What fault? What dire upheaval?

What else is there for us to understand then what we feel right now? If I reach out for you don’t look away, please. I need this melding more than air, and thirst will drive me to you even when you're torn from me. We’ll fight against this driving current lunging forward hoping day will swallow night and we won’t swallow water anymore. But what was is no longer, and once my heart was full with your laughter, while now it’s choked with sand. At dawn I wake and creep into the light, and think of you, and think of you.
And though again the death of day will come, tomorrow I will rise again, and I will take new light from what you left. And think of how you gave me everything you ever had to give.

It’s well past time I think. For all that happened we weren’t ever any more than flaming bits of shrapnel raining from above.

But for all of it there is still snow falling and melting in the steam of your coffee, sticking to your hair, your lashes. Look up pretty girl, look up. You can see the moon tonight, we can see some stars tonight. Maybe one of those stars will guide us home. Maybe tomorrow the whole world will be frozen over and the heat from guns will cease just for a day. Maybe there will be no fire bombs, no infiltrations. Tomorrow there will just be you, and me, and the moon and the stars.

Pretty girl, do you love me? Do you trust me enough to find us a way home? If you’ll let me, I’ll take you away from all of this. If you let me we can go somewhere no-one’s ever been. Not in this wartime. I want to help you pretty girl. I want to love you and to be loved by you. Together, in the air or on the sea- even on land. We’ll be a family. We’ll hide forever from their bombs pretty girl. Just you and me.

No sense here, no sense to stand alone for something you don’t believe in. Even if you think you’re doing the world good. You can’t save them, they can only choose to save themselves, and you’re no saviour anyway.

Pretty girl, we lock ourselves within this prison- we made the choice and decided that what's coming is not meant to tear us from each other’s grasp but maybe move us forward. We are pools and oceans and everything moving to the surface but we are not dry air, pretty girl. We will not flee from the mouths of dying men, and neither will we face them in the turbulence of skies darkened by moments in the past we’ve run from our entire lives.

We are masters of convention waiting for courage and conviction to blaze the way forward. Do you remember the sky we fell from, lit up like Christmas lights? Oh, pretty girl, sometimes I want to light the skies with fire in your name.

Less than nothing flying through the air in pursuit of something we’ll never get to- away from all the horrors that Noah’s Wake stirred up- so many dead and some gone though not dead but gone to where? To feed the birds and fish before they too died. Poison poison everywhere so not a drop to drink. Most of it we can boil off but if we do get sick then we’ll die, we’ll leave and be gone of this asylum we’re trapped inside. The whole of earth is a madhouse and every man railing for his freedom with each dying breath. What use is your god in a place like this? What use is anything but death?
And what of love? Love needs time and health to grow. And that we have not got- so perhaps some humanity we could share between this threadbare blanket- the two of us could find our own religion in this mess. Between us we will write to God with the movement of our bodies- through us He speaks and through disease we listen.

Have you heard? The satellite cities too now have the plague- they say they speak in tongues and blood. So many are dying.

What are we doing? Why are we fighting- to what end? To what end? What happens when we find him? What happens if we fight The Army and come through the other side? We won’t that’s why we’re going. I’m just not ready to do it yet. And in the end where will your god lead us? If he won’t thrust us into the depths then what? We are not The Army- why keep us in flight at all? Why keep the satellites? Why even keep The Army? Why won’t the skies just open to drown us all?