wherever it takes us

James

She's weaving from car to car
Checking the doors
Leaving, leaving bloody handprints on the paintwork
All locked shut

Drops to her knees gasping
Wheezing, can't breathe
The gas mask's leaking, acrid smoke
Her pain, her, her, her slip's on fire

She flaps at it
Swung ringed wrists flap-flapping
Beat the embers out

From her crouch she tries another handle
An old Pontiac
Unlocked, she scrambles in
Slams the door shut, ducks down
Peace

We're all in wherever it takes us
We're all in, it breaks and it shapes us
We're all in wherever it takes us
Let's ride

She strips off her slip
Blotted heavy with blood
Tosses it on the pink leather backseat
Smoke coils out of a zig-zag cut on her palm

She sucks on it, metallic taste
Underneath, a jagged flap of skin
Wisps of DNA unwind
Uncoiling, dissipate, float away

"An upgrade, " she laughs
Words pour out of her mouth, bubblegum
Like, like, like, hieroglyphs
Bioluminescent opaque shapes
Fill up the Pontiac
And here it is, here it is

We're all in wherever it takes us
We're all in, it breaks and it shakes us
We're all in wherever it takes us
Let's ride

She's in the multiverse
Connected lives overlapping like a
Like a hall of mirrors
Lives lived and shared, lived and shared
Affecting her now

Gig-gigabytes of history like a
Like a, like a map
Ancient cultures where men sit around the fire singing
Whilst the women keep bringing the children in
She strips off her skin suit
It puddles at her feet like worm cast
Every cell illuminates and expands
Spools upwards, melting

Dissolving into, into cold light
She dives in
Illumination
And here it is, here is is

We're all in wherever it takes us
(She's made of stars)
We're all in, it breaks and it shapes us
We're all in wherever it takes us
Let's ride

We're all in wherever it takes us
We're all in, it breaks and it shapes us
We're all in wherever it takes us
Let's ride