citrine
by M Casey
…there is no half path in this season, only full-scale, blanket-pulled brushstrokes of things we can’t share, things we try to pass on, failing to pass-by, a bit forgetful, improvisational, a bit toxic, lingering sharp indiscretions held for too long, a time instrumental let go too late, embers peppering your notes in hot rain, and words don’t keep anymore, time commands more than a single switch in chromatic change, a current to course through you in after-fade, we share that connection with time, catching lips rich in myotoxins, when meaning regenerates after each sensation
and you went for that word below the ash of leaves, moving cinders of dead colours to shape the threat display of a shield mantis, its wings carving questions into your hand, where speech warps beyond language, uncompromising, I see you, un-compromised, fading in aquatints and acid reflux of the weather’s emotional state, usually relaxed
sometimes splitting, cuticles picked below upper shades of gunmetal, or silver on better days, like a saturated cloud atlas for a semi-season, gripped into powdered pieces, unconsciously, with you, always unconsciously
you say you like this cold, the shift held tight, the air pressed like drying fruit, when colours melt to shades of flame, from clear to carmine, the ice I’d love to break on rocks of bergamot and red flakes, ġeolurēad you once said in old speak, a hue with no definition, a hue of sparks, which incites a search for heat, and in your elapid’s smile the landscape thickens, the cold is not thin and fresh like winter, a thinning landscape is a gain in weight, anecdotal weight, a lose of landscape that makes you remember, and unlike scorched evenings, you chose to misplace me
I’ll cut into ice, even if there’s no constriction coiled between us, we’ll move in sidewinds across a mutual space, directional, a shared substrate of collected moments, made for a cushioning of deciduous feelings, you’ll reach for them, and I’ll pick out the wings from the needles of evergreens, ashen foliage and scattered floors, shades of lava flow in every sense, and we both know what should have been said, a shift in temperature is never singular, when mood and temperament misplace everything, we’ll tread lightly, fangs of leaves falling always, consciously always…
M Casey is a writer and artist based in Berlin. He studied Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts London. His work has been featured at Vorspiel / transmediale & CTM, König Otto / KINDL, PlusX / Cashmere radio, Insola, a.p. Berlin, Gallery 46 and Courtyard Theatre London. He is also the author of Indignant, published by SUB/SUR Editions + Hato Press.