(a love affair between Paper and Ink, for two voices)
SHE
Waiting for the lines
HE
The lines, the lines
SHE
Waiting to be filled
HE
Waiting to be sealed.
SHE
Thick and white and blank I lie
gazing up beneath the sky
Waiting to be filled
HE
Through her I live,
she gives me life, she lets me breathe
SHE
My edges curl, they rip, they tear
they gently undulate the air
HE
It is flirtation, invitation,
Paper flutters, palpitation.
She calls for words
SHE
Through him I live,
he gives me life, he lets me breathe
HE
I scrawl a story on her skin
of passion, of what lies within
SHE
He scratches out his joys, his pains
along my length and back again.
HE
I dot the ‘i’s’ and cross the ‘t’s’
each stroke a gift – when suddenly
SHE
The Scissors glint, they glare, they growl
Metallic mouthed into a scowl
Those cold blades wink
jealous of the Ink
envying the power
to conjure hour by hour
worlds of words, on the brink
of bursting forth in song
but silenced by steel’s long –
by Scissor’s deathly stare
that snip the trembling air
vibrating with the promise of
the whispered nothings of true love
My mighty Pen, mightier than sword,
than Scissor blades who rent the air
and unlike Ink can devastate
But never create, no never create.
HE
Jealous blades out to destroy
will slice and sharply slash our joy
They cannot bear our happiness
To save her I must sacrifice
I’ll pour myself, my soul, my all
to flood the words, the worlds, the small
attempt at reaching human hearts
and in so doing I depart –
SHE
The Ink is spilled, the deed is done
it spreads, a stain, begins to run
bleeds through me, bleeds about me still –
HE
But there are things you cannot kill.
Though I am spent and drying now
the tiny scrawls of love avow
a feeling that you can’t destroy.
SHE
And heavy, sodden though I am
I am in tact, which must annoy
HE
So jealous steel is not requited
although my ruin has delighted
love’s letter’s lost is not enough
to soothe the shining glint of lust.
SHE
In rage the blades cut through the lines
and through my skin and though he finds
an extra thrill in this reduction
it leads him to his own destruction
My lover’s blood still wet and raw
begins to clog his shining claws
and as I fade, in shreds, he must
I know, at last, succumb to rust.
SHE
So while the Ink and I expire
HE
We know there will be others
SHE
Some will be cut, some burnt in fires
HE
Some shredded, flooded, smothered
SHE/HE
But Paper and Ink will seek always
to meet, to mark each-others’ days
to leave those marks, those scrawls of love
vibrating air with promise of…
While blades will rust and fires will die
new pale blank Papers always lie
ready for Ink, to be transformed
to be transported, to be adorned
SHE
Waiting for the lines
HE
The lines, the lines
SHE
Waiting to be filled
HE
Waiting to be sealed.
poppyburtonmorgan 