His eyes feel like mad August; 
his breath, hot like hope. 
there’s oil in his insides,
and fire twisting in his veins. 

He glances past the striped tent,
which rises and swells with wind.
He sees a cluster of trees drinking stars,
as whispers usher through their contorted alabaster marionettes.

His childhood was a stranded candle
arrested in bruise-colored nights.
The lone light writhed, howled;
but soon was strangled in wax.

He always planted those volatile reminiscences
in the soil next to his rotten garden heart.
and felt those sickly seeds turn crimson,
as each parasite boasted its own pulse.

His skin kindles coliseums
of gasoline-soaked bones.
Slumber-sunk fireflies keep a hollow flame going,
as shadows melt among the incendiary waves of his hair.

He meanders into the light-studded circus,
with a drop of sweat wobbling on his nose.
The spectators fasten his flesh with their stares-
and he slowly peers out at their silhouettes wriggling in the twilight.

His torches burst to life.
Scalding red veils crackling out of existence;
and immediately smoke tugs at his lungs.
His body hisses as he brings the chaos to his teeth.

A charring succession of infernos singe his throat.
Relics of his past heaves upward,
those tears, souvenirs of lonely Septembers, illuminated
between the feathers of phoenixes.

And that pillar of flame suspended above his lips,
cradled by deep liberating exhalations,
collapses within itself.

And the Night applauds.