The Song of Achilles

I knew you first by the shape of your silence The boy beside me with salt on his mouth You were all sharp edges and unguarded light And I learned your name like a wound learns cloth You were my before and after My one true blaze I would follow you under I would learn that ache If the gods wrote it crooked I still read your way "He is half my soul, as the poets say" The sea remembers anyway Achilles, Achilles I could know you blind By touch, by breath, by the way The dark in me found light in you In Chiron's cave, the lyre, the hush Then bronze, then blood, then all that rush Of glory that could not stay kind I wore your armor, lost my mind To every field that took your shape And still, I came to your waking grave You were my before and after My one true blaze I would follow you under I would learn that ache If the gods wrote it crooked I still read your way "He is half my soul, as the poets say" The sea remembers anyway Achilles, Achilles I could know you blind By touch, by breath, by the way The dark in me found light in you "I would know him in death, at the end of the world." You were my before and after My one true blaze I would follow you under I would learn that ache If the gods wrote it crooked I still read your way "He is half my soul, as the poets say" The sea remembers anyway Achilles, Achilles The dark in me found light in you Achilles... Half my soul...