"Anniversary Gift to Subscribers"

Beautiful Illusions

Some nights I would lie awake in your bed
and just watch you as you slept -
sometimes because I couldn't get to sleep,
but others just because I didn't wanna leave you yet
and the moon cast it's shadows around the room
as the dying fire lent the light of it's embers
to caress your face and flirt with your hair
in a way that I can never seem to unremember

And when you laid there all bathed in blue
from the reflection of some long forgotten movie
your eyelids softly waved their lashes
like some sea anemone troubled by your dreams
and I'd always seen something special in those vintage eyes,
some star-like glimmer that hovered just out of sight,
and if I looked fast enough perhaps I could sneak a glimpse
and then maybe, just maybe, everything would be alright

And I remember back to that first night
when you took me to your bed instead of taking me home
and we shared our breath and our dreams
in a time when neither of us really wanted to be alone
and later when we laid in my own bed
as into the palest colors of dawn night began to fade:
our first kisses were tender, moist and fragile,
and grew in intensity like a soft drizzle to rain

And your skin, it was so smoothly demanding
those nights when there was nothing that needed to be said
and your touch, it always so easily unclosed me
and was satisfied, while begging for more in it's same breath
and you fell around me as I was in you,
soft like snowflakes and hard like comets
and I think I lost a piece of myself that night in the mountains -
were you ever able to find it?

("Carrie?"
"Yah?"
"Look at me."
"You asked me yesterday why I put up with you when you're mean..
this is why, the little times like these.")

But I've seen you standing there before me
with that cruel brush held tightly at your side,
trying so hard to paint your fierce illusions
of a woman who nearly thinks she's dead inside
and you tried to keep your butterflies caged away
in a place so much deeper than darkness
and the secret song you've held in your soul
from somehow escaping through parted lips

And the wind feels especially fierce today,
I always loved the way it tried to drive me insane,
kind of like your sudden blitzkrieg storms -
but I know how much you always said you liked the rain
and you were nearly like a tiger yourself sometimes:
wild, tumultuous, and untamable
or some morning rose bleeding it's pearls of dew -
too thorny to hold, but still so damn beautiful

And as these sunsets keep bleeding away
the memories seep back with broken wings -
you were kind of selfish, just a bit heartless,
but there with you, heaven always seemed insane
and I found Pandora's irresistable mystery in the heart
of this trembling adored, tousled birdmad girl
but sometimes friends turn into lovers into strangers,
and I opened my hands and you weren't even there

And that night coming back from your parent's,
for a moment everything almost felt beautiful again -
but you always pushed me away just as you pulled me closer,
and you took me home instead of taking me to your bed
"so much wasted, and this moment keeps slipping away"
played on a radio that knew just what you had in store
as tail lights and reflections colored my thoughts
and, I guess, thoughts of others colored yours

And I haven't really seen you since that night -
just a sunset that leaves it's firework lights behind -
but you still manage to come around sometimes,
you climb right into my masochistic mind
and I remember that long ago night at the movies
when you turned to me with such ferocious kisses
and thrust my hand between the warmth of your thighs
..and I can't help but wonder if you've done the same with him

And these nights, they scab over into morning
when I'm so tired I can't even get to sleep anymore,
and your cruelties keep on ringing in my ears
as the phone's still lying there dead on the floor
and all your mental armor dragged me down
and makes me wonder what was really true in the end -
but if all of this was just pretend,
why can't I just make believe you back again?

And in lavendar sound your memories keep coming back to me,
all the things I tried to keep so tightly tucked within,
all those nights you slept so peacefully entangled in my arms -
how on earth did you ever get so beneath my skin?
but you left me here with your betrayal and deceptions
and images of things much better left unthought -
but something flicks a switch and I can't feel anymore,
just pass me the bottle, maybe I'll find some peace tonight..

And she said:
"'Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughin' at the rain
Little out of touch, little insane
Just easier than dealin' with the pain'"

(I know we came from different worlds, and were never forever -
the distance in her eyes always told me so,
and her apologies, they were always sheathed in anger,
but somewhere I know she knows
something only she knows)

*Dedicated to: Carrie Christopher

- Andrew Miller
(05-15-00)