Your hand brushed against mine, heat slithered up my thigh,
A python of mystery and allure, temptations offering more.
I tried to avoid your eyes, to avoid facing all those lies,
But I wanted us to burn, deep into the sheets, igniting skin,
Skin on fire, liar liar, pants on fire.

I wanted nothing more, than to send you up in flames
Smoke dancing around your lungs, tightening your chest
The way I couldn't breathe, when you played such cruel games.
I longed for your eyes to sting, in a way you couldn't rest
Eyes on fire, liar liar, pants on fire.

And when we come up for air, with sweat upon our brows,
But not enough to put these flames out,
I hope you inhale the way you made me feel
And I'll watch it lick you, the way I didn't any more,
Into the sorriest ashes, smouldering on the floor,
Skin on fire, liar liar, pants on fire.

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.