"It starts with bloodshed, always bloodshed,
always the same.
Running from something larger than yourself story,
shoving money into the jaws of a suitcase,
cutting your hair with a steak knife at a rest stop,
and you're off, you're on the run, a fugitive driving away
from something shameful and half-remembered.
You see, it's done.
The decisions made.
They're hurling their bodies down the freeway
to the smell of gasoline, which is the sound of a voice saying
I told you so.
Yes, you did, dear.
Every story has its chapter in the desert, the long slide
from kingdom to kingdom through the wilderness,
where you learn things where you're
left to your own devices.
You may find yourself, under the standard loves heavy with love,
and someone is smiling at you like there's no tomorrow.
Or you may find yourself under the standard loves,
lost among the luggage and the diesel fumes.
Tender darlings we are rolling across the landscape,
scrambling angels into the road map.
Highway named Michael, highway named Gabriel,
a highway named St Sebastian on the cross riddled with arrows.
Henry's driving, and Theodore's leading shotgun
into the upholstery.
Past numb, past hands to lips, past the crushed blue velvet
of the night, past shame and blame and justice, past mercy
with her sandpaper tone.
It's a road movie, a double-feature,
two boys striking out across America,
while desire, like a monster crawls up
out of the lake with all of us watching,
with all of us wondering if the these two boys
will figure it out.
Here is the black box, the shut eye,
the bullet pearling in his living skin.
This boy half destroyed feeling wrong and damned,
and just trying to love the world,
just trying to love a part that he can handle.
He wants to leave the theater, he
wants to drive out of the script,
but theater, how can you leave the theater when
you're the theater itself.
He's screaming 'drive into that train,
drive off the embankment.
Henry, make something happen.'
Right there on the horizon angels
pouring out of the farmland, angels
swarming over the grassland, angels
with their cameras rolling.
We are not dirty, he keeps saying, we are not dirty...
Angels rising from the little dens,
arms swinging, wings of aflutter,
annihilating them with their white hot bombs of love.
So here you are, hollow eyed and susceptible,
feeling tired, feeling used, a hole blown through you
to let the Angels in.
Henry, please, I won't be such a creep,
but they're cutting you open and peeling you back
to see if there's anything in there,
to see if there's anything left to take.
They want you to love the whole damn world
but you won't, you want it all narrowed down
to one fleshy man in the bath, who
knows what to do with his body, with his hands.
It should follow, you know this, like the panels
of a comic strip, we should be belted in,
but you still can't get beyond your skin,
you still can't get beyond the sheets of flame,
and they're trying to drive you into the ground,
to see if anything walks away."