I once met a man,
with a remarkably even brow,
who promised me we’d dance naked on the ice caps of Patagonia.
He swore it like I was the torch that lit fire to his blood;
swore it like he could already feel the earth beneath us melting away.
He called to me, “Kendra”,
and ate all the letters as they slid over his tongue.
I believed him only for the way his mouth moved.
I followed.
I poured myself into the stream of his praises, poured my breath onto his hungry tongue,
I poured, and poured, and drained myself empty.
I awoke alone
to my first crystal splintering: the crisp and brutal dawning
that most full nights will waken to empty mornings.