Ghost Towns

Walk around my room, my buildings of stacked away books

Don't trip and send the pile crashing
But if you do, the paperbacks will cushion you
Or if they don't at least
It wasn't sticks or stones
But words that broke your bones.

I'm laughing, right now
The coffee is hot, right now
It's in the kitchen, so it'll burn and spill before I reach out
But I'm surrounded by buildings
And I'm waiting for you to stand up so I can laugh and say,
'Godzilla'.

When we shut the lights and walk around
And watch our step to stop
Your Palahniuk from falling on my Ulysses
Your wrist reaching out for mine
Your car with its yellow pinprick eyes
Staring back even as we wish goodbye.

We're building ghost towns that no one outside us knows.

We have a secret language marked out in the nooks
Made by all the blocks of books
Tell me you're not a dancer and
We'll learn ballet
Tell me you don't walk barefoot
And I'll let your skin taste this marble valley.

Here is the blueprints on our palms
Of all the stories we've stolen from the buildings
Of how we built a world with words and
Then changed them in our head
And waited for when we're asleep, saying,
'They'll come back then.'

This is our ghost town
That we shelve out in half and half
For favourites, childhood-read,
Saving for our kids
Or when they invent technology for our dogs to read.

This is our ghost town
The one I'll pack and shut before anyone gets home
I'm not planning on leaving any evidence outside
The plans for what book is which brick
And which brick is for which building
And which one has love notes from a younger, older life
And which one is the one that's an allegory for you and I.