and this is how i pick my bones apart.
every layer of skin begins to burn,
there's a bad taste on my tongue from choking back on your name.
i hear the tones drop in my chest, fully involved with my anger inside.

and i wish that roof collapsed.
when does the smoke clear up from the flashover we caused?
there's a tombstone above my bed commending you for killing what was left in me.
no light, no light, and you were trained to move without your vision.

there goes the flag, my final call.
to the monster you were, and he slayed, see you at the big one.

tell me about the fact that you never sleep on your left side.
describe every turn, every toss, every other hour where you open your eyes again.
your hand reaches into the humid air, trying to remember the width of my throat.

and isn't that like you? to run your tongue along the taste of piled bones against a torn mattress.

not the heat, not the growls in between,
you are beautiful, i see how you burn for me.

but didn't your mother warn you not to play with fire?
kerosene is unforgiving, my fingers striking the evening in the shape of matches.

and so we scream, you slam your body into mine.
a breath into my neck, just like this, baby?

but don't forget the way my lips burned your skin.
you won't find destruction like this in any other life.

and that is the art of my absence.

so, tell me again how you don't sleep on your left side,
because that's where the fire started.

and to think, maybe you could love me.
but i knew your young heart never could.

i have so much rage inside.

your naive youth could never
strategically bind with my
callous tendencies.

and that is the only resistance between us.

and that's when i realized,

you will not come home to me, you never could.

i am not soft or flexible, i am all sharp teeth and rough tongue.
i am more carnage than compassion.
my jaw clenches to show i could be nothing but cruel, never will be kind.

and who wants to call a wild beast theirs?
the fairytales never end that way.

it's enough, because it has to be.
the brush of your chest in us crossing paths.
the rhythm of your voice as it fills the room with every story you tell and every joke you crack.

and i can't falter this time.
enough is enough.
that's the key word here, isn't it?

enough.

enough of me feeding off every glance we catch each other in.
enough of me trying to fill the gory space in my chest with the days you had me believe i could be sane.

that's not who we are.
so stripped of sentimental views, seeing the world for it's rationality.
never it's emotion.

and my god, did i want to know what it was like.
to continue on into each day with another being who couldn't wait until i woke up.
who waited for me until i did.
and you peeled the armor from my skin, touched each scar and made a map.
"you are so strong, and i have never been under the hand of someone like you."

you believed in luck then.
even if it was short lived.

and maybe, just maybe,
before you left me in the claws of the shadows that were starved of my suffering you had pulled me from,

i believed, too.

I always feel the steel of my bones begin to bend.
The flame you left burning inside of me has not gone out.

And, oh, believe me, it is easy to suit back up.
It is simple to keep a straight face.
Even when I hear your voice resound in the red walls,
or when the thought of myself beneath you follows me into the dark.

the flame burns before us,
and you sit behind me.
not at my side,
not in front of me.
and in this you are like my guardian again,
although i've never needed anyone to protect me.
because that's my job.
i am my own shield.
but here you are.

you're voice above me,
body behind me.
and it's not intimate.
you barely notice the way my rib cage shakes,
the thunder in my veins every time your words resound.
and inside, there is a war.

because how could i ask you to walk
into the depths of this sea,
into this storm,
with this youth in your bones,
and the steel in mine?

sleep now, let's sleep.
and if only you were next to me again.
if only.

you twist each limb with every click 
of your tongue, canines grinding 
together as i count each tired breath.

this is where we’ll stay. i lift my head
 at the witch’s hour and form a 
cathedral above you, in my head i’ve 
cast myself as god.

stay now, stay beneath my hand.

there is safety here, even under the 
sins etched into each thread of the 
blanket you sleep with.

i will burn for you.

you’ll wake up and find holes
in my hands.

and it happens like this —
youth like the matches that make up your rib cage,
black smoke breathes in and out from your chest.
inhale, exhale, they call this a flashover.
the room combusts, and i am running for the door.
armor made of leather and air tanks.
it was not enough to rescue me from the intensity of your flame.

they sound off the alarm.
once, twice, three times.
you carry the ashes, you sing to me once more.
and how could this be?
the structure collapsing below my feet, and i imagine falling into your hands.
but there are tools in place and the weight of your exhaustion.
pulling at the air above and exposing the danger unseen.

but you see, you and i, we were forged from the most violent fire.
our bones in pits and veins feeding the gasoline.
days shaped by your heat —
they taught me how to prevent burns.

gear up, lead the way, extinguish the threat.
but, babe, they did not go over how to survive the flash of light,
the scorched throats and screams of 'mayday!'.

no, they did not prepare me to face the intensity of high tempatures in the form of your absence.
they taught me how to be blind in the dark,
how to pull you from it's depths.
but not to survive your structure's demise.

they did not teach me how to live when you set everything aflame.

a thirst for self destruction —
the need and bargaining to take others down with me.
mania in it's most heated form,
raw,
no mercy.

it's only a matter of time now.

i wanted to write about the wolf in my chest.
how it is hungry with claws extended, tongue running over it's teeth.
i wanted to write about the thunder in my bones.
it's cry shaking the ground and waking you from your sleep.
i wanted to write about what makes me deathless,
my flesh iron and teeth sharp.

i did not want to write about you.

i did not want to write about the fire you started in me,
that you ran from as you called yourself "brave".
i did not want to write about how there are stones in my throat,
or how exposed the space between my ribs had become.
i did not want to write about the phantom limbs i feel when the air is still.
i did not want to write about sitting in your passenger seat while driving in the dead of night,
mercy in the form of twisted hands and my head in your lap,
like it was that easy,
like you had become comfortable with the cold.

no, i did not want to write about you.

because if i do not speak your name,
if i do not romanticize what was,
i can bury you the way i have before, the bodies piling up,
your name on a tombstone.
maybe it is because you are young and i am tired.

i did not want to write about you.
i have written like this before.
names and dated times to remember when i felt this vacant.
i did not want you to become another page in this black book,
or another reason to believe i am being punished,
my trust in god deteriorating effortlessly,
you sleeping soundly in your bed.

i did not want to write about you, so this is where the verse ends.