Sunbleached Skulls - Bambara

Watch you sleep on a black towel in the sand

In the foam of dead jellyfish and crushed beer cans

Sucking flies in your mouth

Then you breathe them out

Just to suck them back in again

I look at the stubble on your sunburned scalp

Think about how it scratches on my neck and lips

Wonder why you grew your hair out long

And then you dyed it blonde

Just to shave it all off again

In the space between your teeth

There’s a doorway to the desert

Where you breathe sandstorms to life

Howling through broken mines

And the hollows of sunbleached skulls

You look up at me through the sun

Tell me ‘bout some dream you’ve just awoken from

Where I died shirtless in the street

Pants tangled round my feet

Waving a bottle at you like a gun

And your face is the same

As when you found that picture of her in my desk

All blonde locks and naked flesh

Back then you didn’t say a word

Just chirped sad as a lost bird

And then you dropped it back into the mess

Your mouth open wide

Just like your grandma’s when she died

And you sigh with a moan

Breathing life into snakeskins and dried up bones

Something washes up onto the beach

Yeah, it’s half eaten but it’s still movin'

You reach out and grab my hand

We watch it struggle in the sand

And all the seagulls start to sing