Apotropaic Proliferation

(Him):
I was formed in the hour of the turn of the tide
Then plopped out stark naked on the cold harbour-side
I was stabbed to the air like a knife from a sheath
And emerged fully screaming with a full set of teeth
Then my mother arose and staggered away
And dragged her displeasure back to the fray

(Her):
I saw you aflamed by the meteor's light
Abandoned for shame to the dark teething night
I saw your rank mixture of blood and soft bones
A mewling and blubbering mess on the stones
But I knew you'd survive, I knew what you'd be
And I knew that I'd come back to claim you for me

I was brought up by exiles and forced into youth
And knew every day my suppressed caustic truth
And I shared my upbringing with outcasts and cripples
And my teeth always scarred the mad wet nurse's nipples
And I waited for something as the blood-feelings grew
But I never suspected that it would be you

I trod out the years as you grew to a man
Then slipped back in the city in spite of the ban
I skulked from my mountains and staked out your space
My braincells still seething from my fall from disgrace
I was primed for the love-match, I was geared for the fight
(Please never take lightly a revenant's spite)

But when you appeared it was love straight away
And something compelled me to coax you to stay
And I knew I would lose myself if you should go
As your mouth kissed my cheek in an oval of snow
So I tooth-marked your tongue in that tingle of night
But it shredded my mouth with its shrapnel-like bite

Well you could have fled, but you threw your last chance
When your tongue clashed with mine in that dagger-blade dance
You stabbed yourself down when you started to gloat
That your bittered effusions had sulked down my throat
If you'd run away, there'd have been no more leaks
But your iced eyes raked my homeland of distant brown peaks

When I looked to those hills, I felt a sharp pain
And your mouth had polluted my jugular vein
You bit into me, I bled into you
No one had told me that was not what you do
When you kiss for the first time, alone on the quay
But you took your advantage of my naivety

Well you should have learned, you should have found out
A revenant's job is done in a shout
A shout of rebellion and teeth and of blood
That relinquished your grip on your soul's maidenhood
But you must subside, like your grubby tumescence
(You're useful just once when you've reached adolescence)

Well you say you must leave, you say we must part
But try walking away with this stake through your heart
And the filth of your scheme leaving me in the lurch
Will be swilled by my theft from the font of that church
And just for good measure you're ingesting the harm
From this crucifix hacked in the skin of my palm

Well you say I must stay like all stupidly young
But you're silver-infected from biting my tongue
Yes, the bullet self-stitched in that muscle's deep fold
Has poisoned your brain and you'll never live old
And your eyes tell the tale that you feel that first twinge
Of despair from this rosary under my fringe

Well we're stopped in the tracks of our crucified lust
We've infected each other with vulgar mistrust
So we should be sorry, but we can't feel remorse
So we'll let metamorphism take its trite course
To our mutually assured perpetuity loop
With our souls boiling out as our skin starts to droop

You fool, you know nothing of a revenant's ghost
Which is flayed from the undecayed flesh of the host
When the bone-ground, tooth-rotted cadaver-soul makes
A ravening flurry of skin-petal flakes
Formed to a shape that matches the flow
Of the shoals of sharp fish in the water below

Well your skin-ghost is appearing, but he seems just like me
And he's jailed to the waterways, chained to the sea
He'll crave solid ground that he's forced to avoid
With his revenant status completely destroyed
For he'll realise, as the tide starts to turn
That there is no escape, so there is no return

Your flesh-soul is appearing, and I know that she's me
So she'll be cuffed to this city and never go free
She'll wander its alleys and exult in its churches
And shrink far from water and your floundering searches
She'll assemble her hand-fragments, tossed through salt air
And reach out for fingers that fail to be there

Yes, we're blinded to each other as a mark of our loss
So we'll never know if our paths ever cross

No, we'll never know if our paths ever cross