All Photography by Finn Darrell
words of emp*werment
We stand on the shoulders of giants.
Giants supporting giants.
Stilettos stacked sky-high,
legs so long
clouds dance around the thighs
Visage vers le ciel
eyes to the sun
and beyond.
We reach heights higher than the
beanstalk could ever imagine.
Looking down on the clouds
We soar.
sternum
shirt button open
revealing breastless chest
breathless lungs
sternum
staring straight on
better than before
the deficit of flesh
is the presence of my joy
equatorial affairs
by cosmic coincidence
one Colombian happening
we collided-club-bound
in the sweet summer of ‘19
both born beneath the waning gibbous
of the millennium orbit
twin flame, do you still burn?
baum baum baum
the crowd shook together as one
rattling apples all over Newton’s gurning jowls
does dance imitate music? or does music imitate dance?
these were the kinds of questions we asked ourselves
and each other
that summer.
we met through locked eyes
as you did a double-take,
gleefully gulping my aura down your gullet.
Adam’s apple always protruding
head cocked horizontally
from behind the bathroom door
baum baum baum!
Techno-lovers cavorting
clustered round the altar—the central trunk
sticking stubborn through the roof of the place as if to say
I was here first!
baum baum baum
the noble árbol
surrounded by its congregation
throbbing bodies
surround-sound and perspiration
sharing from the communal cup of audio-visual vibrations
turntables and turned tables
handbags
and
hearts were searched that night
that reluctantly turned to balmy dawn on the mountains of
Bogotá
was it the altitude sickness?
or that malady we call love?
you told me about the history of the area
all of which I’ve long forgotten
but I remember how enthralled I was
and even better, I remember when we shared our
first kiss
in an
empty church
Lord forgive me.
your eyes shone an azul blue
like the sky
although they say the sky is not actually blue
but in fact, a scattering of the Sun’s photons as they enter
our atmosphere
no matter.
your eyes shone an azul blue
like the sky
and when the sky turned grey, which, of course, it didn’t,
we rode in our mechanic carriage up and up through cloud
city
into el páramo
un paraíso
empty
except for the birds and the bees
the nothingness surrounded by us
we bathed and baptised each other’s broken bodies in a
brook,
knee-high
and made love under the equatorial sun
and basked in abundance
and lost track of time
as one does in these situations.
and you drove me back at lightning speed so I wouldn’t
miss the plane
and Maya was furious with me.
and if we’d have crashed the car that glorious day I
wouldn’t have minded in the least
mundanity was a memory with you, Mateo
melon juice coated every crevice licked off each other’s
hand.
tasting of sweet and sweat,
it doesn’t quite taste the same when it’s been flown across
the globe
and you can’t buy love in the supermarket.
the memory of you
is tucked away in the corner of my mind
in a delicately wrapped package
like the one I sent for your birthday
which you never thanked me for
until it arrived months later.
bloody postal service,
about as reliable as British meteorologists.
I digress
to you
my most favourite brief encounter
mateo
te amo.
the experience
canvas smarting
limbs twitching
vision tracing
am I many onion skins?
nausea starts so I know it begins
as I look at the screen
shadows of wiggling
behind every pixel
red
green
glowing machine
kernels in my mind
explode, eyes: glowing
grass alive and growing
an overbitten lip
ponders as it is stroked by
a canine
bitten softly
chapped plump fleshy and tender
It’s been half an hour
but it feels like forever
sixty-eight billion
seventy-nine million
three thousand and thirty-three
seconds
gone
by
See more of Finn Darrell’s photography on Instagram @daaddy.longlegs