Motion Picture Soundtrack

Title from Radiohead



Last night I spent hours making a silent film for you

because I couldn't sleep.

Like the box said, those allergy pills gave me insomnia.



I tried recreating that Méliès one you liked

where he conducts his heads on a musical number.

You said it reminded you of something out of Slumberland.

But the exposures and lighting and matching frames were all too difficult.



So I made my own Caligarian epic

with painted shadows planned from low-key lights,

massive walls full of darkened windows built to odd angles

giving reflections like a state fair fun house,

and the irony of me as a somnambulist.



And I starred with my best Buster Keaton impression,

with my mouth pulled tightly down at the corners

while I tried so hard to feel like a statue that I didn't even blink

so that you could paint whatever emotion you wanted into the wide stare.

And I hope you didn't read longing into those eyes.

And when I find it ten years from now in a stack of unmarked DVDs

I hope I don't read longing into those eyes.