when I was twelve, my sister whispered in my ear in a stuffy August church service.
"you'll know when they come along", she said, "fireflies will flicker behind your weary eyes."
that never prepared me for you.

you weren't a flicker. you taught me to see nothing but light. you taught me that no matter how quickly the flames transition to embers, the embers still burn the brightest. when the electricity went out, you were there to light the candles. and when the wicks burnt down, and there were no more matches to light, you didn't abandon me in the darkness. instead, you showed me the sun.

nothing, not even the sun, could ever radiate light any brighter than your eyes. nothing is comparable to the laugh that sets my stomach on fire. the sadness burns my throat, but you make the stars shine, and I swear to god I speak of you like you put them in the sky.

I like to think that when you left me, you went straight to church. you listened to the sermon, but you couldn't stand up when the congregation sang.
I like to think that someday you'll stop trying to wash my scriptures off your hands with holy water.
I like to think that I'm that old mattress you had when you were ten; you always said it held the same familiarity as falling in love with a stranger.
the mattress' holes from falling asleep with lit cigarettes match up perfectly with my alibi.

I'm not to be trusted. I'm an angry human.
I grew up with broken glass in my lungs and cracked ribs.
something inside me snaps even further when the sun shapes your body into a shadow on my bedroom wall.

I want to redefine the word 'fire' with your name, and light candles with you. I want to make my walls sweat. I want you to burn up my ****** clothes. I want you to set my books ablaze. I want you to realize the hardest part is never letting go, but forgetting you ever had a handle.

you can't be the flame and the wick.
you need to leave me to burn down, like the altar candles in the front of the sanctuary, for everyone to see.

sometimes I think god hates me; I'm just a pawn in his and satan's chess game.
small and insignificant in value - I almost want satan to win.

after all,
if you are fire,
hell will feel like home.

but then I remember that I'm tired of controlled burns and scrubbing your soot off of my hands.

so I like to think that when you left me, you went straight to church. you listened to the sermon, but you couldn't stand up when the congregation sang.

and I like to think that Saint Jude called me out of your blaze, and that I left you there with all of your confessions and your communions in your own personal hell.

either way, it's not my cross to bear anymore.

+I met you after Sunday school, behind the church. We weren't a match made in heaven, as much as a match made in our over exuberant parents' minds. You passed with Autumn weather.

+You were the start of all of my bad habits. I was there, but you were lost in an empty void in your mind. I was only a part of the grand experiment, after all. You left with the summer months, but my mouth still tasted like nicotine and empty confessions.

+You were a new way to feel good. We always watched the sunset, but we never got to watch it rise together. Your lips felt like sunshine, but there were constant storms behind your eyes. The snow fell as fast I did for you, but when it melted, we were left with nothing but mud puddles and thunder storms. We weren't equipped for the showers, because the memories of you quickly washed away from my mind.

+You were the beginning to coffee every morning, and reading every night. You were the death of the old me. You were the sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the plants in the ground, and any other cliche your beautiful mind could piece together. You were an addiction, quite honestly, but a bad one at that. You had all of my soul, but you walked out two years later, your hands covered in my blood. Every empty promise your lips have ever uttered still hangs in the stagnant air, and I can't breathe. I promise that I will never forget you, whether you like that or not.  We both loved wildflowers, but you didn't stay
long enough to see them bloom out of the cracks in my persona.

+You were my truest love, and my shortest happiness. You always smelled like flowers, and your freckles hung on your face with an unspoken confidence. Your smile could have stopped traffic, but that same mouth tore me apart before I even had the chance to piece myself back together. We spent our time as ghosts: floating around, never waiting long enough for the other to catch up. Your habits finally got the best of you, and I was left alone in the middle of my fantasy.