I fear you. I do.
I fear my fascination with you.
I pull away like the planets press against their rings around the sun,
Reaching for the stillness of the dark beyond
But bound by dazzling heat and light.
Sometimes I see my death in your eyes
Like a moth sees its immolation in the filaments of a lightbulb
But sacrifices life to be
For a moment
Finally warm.

I trust you
As much as one can trust something wild:
I understand
That to touch you might leave
Scars on my hands,
But I think that they would be scars
I would cherish in my later years
And trace among the creases of age
As proof that I had lived without regret.

It is not the heat I fear,
In truth
It is the cold.
It is the passing
Of something bright
Close beside me and then
Beyond
Off into the world
Where I may not follow.

It is the blindness that always comes
When I look away from a brilliant light
And am for a moment paralyzed
By the cold certainty that I will never see again:

I would leave you with something to remember me by,
Some love that refuses to fall away no matter the storm,
No matter the chaos of your fire.
Something quiet and constant
And more enduring than I am.

For

I fear not what you are
But what you aren't
Which, like black water,
Will rush in to fill the void
Once you have gone.