Kerry Bernatchez Poet Narrative

1984 // Love on the Run

Between the dying billboards of decaying dreams,  
we make our escape.  
On a moped through the streets of denial and shame,  
we gather speed.  

Cameras catch your cheshire smile —  
they’re watching,  
but right now they can’t act.  
They can only watch.  
They cannot stop us.  

Your grin is a glitch in their perfect order,  
a bright rebellion they never trained for.  
We ride through the grid like rumor,  
every heartbeat a crime of freedom.  

Hold on to me —  
the world fades to black,  
purple rain falls from the sky.  

Tonight we break the spell,  
slip through the fog of war,  
ghosts in the static,  
alive in the one place  
their doctrine never reached.  

Let them trace our shadows on the skyline —  
we’re brighter than their grids tonight.  
They can watch us,  
but they can’t catch us —  
we’re already out of sight.  

We burn through every flatline,  
turn their silence into light.  
Insurgents of love in the open,  
and baby, we’re alive tonight.  

We’ll be like panthers,  
all black everything,  
slipping past their radar  
into the slipstream.  

Two silhouettes moving  
between the beats of the machine —  
untouchable, unseen, alive.  

Between the living trees of orchards and groves,  
in bare sunlight,  
we lay down the burden of a life  
built on systems and expectations.  

A moment in the grass,  
a lever in the gears —  
freedom feels less like running  
and more like being.  

Will they find us this time,  
the watchers in their glass towers  
throwing stones at anyone  
who won’t think in unison?  

We keep moving —  
city to city,  
town to town.  
Think you saw us?  
Think you know where we go?  
We are ghosts.  

Kiss me here in the paranoia and fear,  
the state they left us in  
with their battle drills and sins.  

I need something other than dread —  
you are my life blood,  
swimming in my head.  

They watch, they observe,  
expect our submission,  
want us severed from conviction.  

But I love you whether it’s allowed,  
whether they frown.  
If they spread our names through every town,  
we’ll still outrun their doctrine,  
still slip through their fingers  
like ink refusing the lines.  

Let them tighten their grip —  
we’ve slipped through stronger hands.  
Every mile turns fear to fuel.  
Hold on to me as the horizon bends —  
we’re not running anymore,  
we’re ascending.  

Let them trace our shadows on the skyline,  
we’re brighter than their grids tonight.  
They can watch us,  
but they can’t catch us —  
we’re already out of sight.  

We burn through every flatline,  
turn their silence into light.  
Insurgents of love in the open,  
and baby, we’re alive tonight.  

We move like whispers  
through orchards, alleys, fields —  
every place their maps forgot.  

Two ghosts in the slipstream,  
two sparks in the circuitry,  
rewriting the world 
one stolen moment at a time.

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