The times when you are
here are precious to me, yet
they all blur together, becoming
a long streak of warm, orange
contentment, marked with
moments of yellow and more
of red.

Yellow, for when the orange
burns brightly enough to move
beyond mere contentment to
a fierce joy.

Red, for when the orange
recedes, its glow dimming
to reveal the uglier side -the
possessiveness, the jealousy, and
the detox.

When you bind
   yourself to someone you
      never realize how the chains
         add up.

                                               I didn't. It didn't
                                             matter, though, as long as
                                           you all tried to work
                                         out the tangles and pull
                                       me in the same direction.

                                     Now
         I have let you sink
                                             your grappling hooks into
                        all these little pieces
                                 of me and none
         can decide which way
                                                           to go
                nor do they
                                   have to as
         you tear them
                                            apart
          ­                                                           from
         each
                       other
                                                          I­
cease
                                            to
            ­          exist.

You are

the single flower petal left lying
in the wake of the wedding
train years later as I yearn to

see the splash of color against
the ground of gray and I
kneel to lift you and

breathe life into your lines,
clasp you in my arms,
call you mine, yet I stay

my reach and skim you
gently with my fingertips, not
daring to risk

a tear.

My life was always accompanied
by poisoned suns, suns that did not know how
to step out of their twilight and so had
to jump far beyond that,
a supernova, and I learned not to be blinded
by the changeable light.

And when I realized
that all that is left after
a supernova is dust and shadows, my eyes
changed to the slit pupils of
a snake, and I learned not to be blinded
by the darkness.

But when I was confronted
with the steady, cheerful glow of
a hearthfire, I had never learned not to be blinded
by a light that stays, constant despite
its flickering. I who was a child in the land of
dying suns never learned not to be burned
by warmth, and though I long to linger
by the fireside sometimes I must step
out into the bitter wind to remember
who I am. I can only
promise to return.

I do not bottle
myself up anymore. I
no longer push my soul
through the glass neck and
shove the cork in after it.

But underlying the bubbling
explosion of my sentiment
stands the apprehension that I should
stop shaking the champagne, that I should
never have looked so hard for
the corkscrew in the first place.

When the bubbles have finished
rising out of this inadequate container,
less will be left inside the bottle.