the queen of the vandals draws out her blade
a fine and sharp tongued brush
and directs the chaos of her teaching to the walls and the streets
while
I sip my brandy and casually ask about the meaning of a toy
to which she replies, “We all start out as one.
It's your right of passage to get it wrong,
but you'll learn,” she says.
As her army of thieves take to the long shadows
and re-imagine a landscape
I finish my snifter and say goodbye to her that had eyes of desire
and lips that dared you to be executed
and took to the purple, pink, stripped and rainbow poke-dotted world
like a gentleman through the savage garden
lightly
and knowing that
beauty hides the dangerous
and kindness hides a hunger
and as long as you have eyes
others see you
but what of you they see
is hidden
and following the sun as it moved my shadow
and stretching out my hand to claw the walls
and re-imagine the opera of conversation
I saw for the first time all that crumbled was new,
battered, blue
and memories of your past youth were as pebbles in
my shoe while the queen and vandals rushed to re-purpose
and re-contextualize people's garbage and wasted youth
I had stumbled my step
still fixed on you
