Your hands are torches
And you're writing sonnets on my skin with fire.
Instead of welding me and you together
You open my flesh
And burn my essence.
Your lips create the wind that blows the flames
Heating more by the minute.
And as you speak, I burn.
When you press the bellows to me
It only fuels my furnace.
This is the fire only you can start
And I'm aching for you to put out.

(Firehose, please.)

I want to sit out at three a.m. again.

Tension instead of air
Stars instead of sky
Music instead of thoughts

Your hands on my body
Questioning

"How much do you want to live?"

I haven't been writing much lately.

My vault is being emptied into you
Instead of into poems,
I think.

Maybe I'm running low
And need to go to the bank to get some change.

Maybe I need to
Diversify my portfolio, so to speak.

Maybe
I need to go to the casino
And take a gamble to see if I can refill it.
But I've never been good at any game but slots
So you'd have to come help me.
We can count cards all night
And stuff my safe with the anticipation
And risk of getting caught.

Maybe I just need an accountant.
Maybe I need a loan.
Maybe I need you to be my loan-shark.

Gray matter unfolds
To expose a world hence unseen.
What you thought was soft muscle
Is actually a community of golden pathways,
Carved from the hollow horns
Of unicorns, slayers of virgins.

Like a deconstructed accordion,
It flattens
And reveals a soul, a heart
Floating through space on the back of his fingers.

The deepest annals of the universe
Are uncovered for your eyes only
And for those few blessed moments
There is only greatness.

You don't have his eyes memorized.
You know they're green, sometimes
But they're elusive when you try to draw them with your fingers.
You aren't confidantes with every last cell in his hands
Or know the moons of his fingernails.
And you can't taste his lips when he's not there.

You don't know him yet, and that's fine.
But you need to remember that.
I think if you had his minutiae immortalized in your mind
And you could already sculpt his eyes out of air
You would be in far too deep
Far too soon.

How big can a star be?

Big enough
To cloud your judgement
(Or maybe just rethink your life?)
And free your mind.

Bright enough
To blind you to the world around you
And force you to focus.
Focus!

Hot enough
To burn your cells
And leave enough scar tissue to make sure
You never forget.

Blue enough
To make blue your new favorite color
When you hated it before.

Powerful enough
To make you really look at the sky again
And see the night as magical.

He says he loves you.
Not that he will love you forever
And not that he wants to pledge his undying fervor.
But in this moment
He loves who you are.

And that's really all you can handle now, probably.
Because you know how boys like to say
I love you
In the flame of infatuation.
And you know how people can lie
Malicious intent or not
Because you did it for months.
And you know how that song goes
"Boys like you love me forever"
And it always makes you uncomfortable
Because forever is a long time to promise
But some boys don't seem to move on very well.

So you are unsure about forever
And about promises
And about love.
But he says that it just means that
He loves you as a person.
He loves you right now.
He is in love with this point in time.
And you're so **** happy
Because that's exactly what you feel
Because you are in love with this point in time
And you love him as a person
And you love him right now
And no one else has ever been able to understand that distinction.

You can't get that stupid grin off your face
And you fall asleep in his arms
Subconscious armed with idle speculation
About fictional futures
And possible presents.
You just hope he's grinning too.