Can it not be enough
for your skin to tingle,

when it gets too close
to the open fire you are
curled in front of,

reading books that take
you to places that even
your dreams don't reach...

To exist in a moment of
contentment without waiting,
wanting, wishing for
the next one..

There was a time when I would run
into a burning building
to save you,

until I released that you were,
in fact, the arsonist,

setting light to whatever you touched,
(for the Hell of it)
and I was in that
(Hell)

my flesh burning as your fingers
pressed their prints on it

but you didn’t realise,
that you had turned me into evidence

and I would drag my body through
a thousand fires, and roll in the ashes,
of what’s left of my life

to help them catch you

When I close my eyes
I see the beach where we once sat,
drinking wine and sharing cigarettes,
we watched the waves crash over
the sand, imagining that one day,
we would own a cottage on the coast,
we were could listen to
the ocean each night,
as we snuggled warm under blankets,
now we are cold and distant,
and no amount of dreaming
will bring the fire back into
our hearts, we are over
and it hurts to remember
those careless, wasted days,
where we could have done
so much instead of just
waiting

You pick apart
the days we've shared
as is if they are cotton threads on a shirt,
analysing each moment
to see where we went wrong,

examining what you believe
to be the facts, when love
can't be understood by
facts.

What about the feelings
we shared? or the kisses?
do these things matter less
than a ten minute taxi ride
or a possible wrong turn
in the woods?

Why are you so cold?
so utterly distant from your heart?
as if it doesn't live in your own chest at all,
but in another body entirely,

maybe that is why I could never reach it
maybe that is why our relationship
will be eliminated to nothing,
after your deductions

the morning dew
that covers
our shoes
as we walk blindly
into another day
of opportunity

will become the
midnight rain
that drowns out
the sound
of the chances
we missed

you smell of cigarettes
and brandy,
and I breathe it down
as if it is the purest air
I have ever known,

my nose bleeds, eventually,
and yet I do not blame you,

for in your eyes I see
the fire in my own,
the fury and rage that longs
to burn down buildings that have
stood tall for hundreds of years,

out of spite and jealously,
that our passion will barely last
a hundred seconds

we lived in a fantasy
that if we saved
each other

then we would
somehow heal the
brokenness that sat heavy
in our hearts

not realising that we were
losing ourselves
by fighting so hard
for each other’s

existence