We danced in the marrow of fire
where your laugh was a hymn to the sun
and my breath, the breaking of storm
against your calm.

The moon was yours, wasn't it?
You claimed it in laughter,
its craters mirroring the scars you hid.
Now it hangs over me, pallid and ever so distant,
a barren reminder that your light bends,
but never stays.

Those words burned in my throat:
*****, ****, ***** -
I didn't mean them,
but the ash of those syllables
stained our sheets, our silences,
our once pure bed of possibility.

And you - ever silent. closing
a porcelain door I could not unhinge -
leaving me behind to burn.
Your heart, a locked room,
and each memory of us
a window

You watched the fire
slither up my skin, setting alight
the cracks I could not hide
Did you see in that moment
the vividness of passion I carried for you?
Or was I always destined to be the bridge you crossed
towards safer lands?

I revisit these ruins, every so often now.
my specter joined by your shadow,
an ugly companion you left behind.
This Pompeian heritage cemented,
as if love was the kindling
and our destruction the inevitable fire.

Tell me:
when you think of me,
do you ache?

Or am I now the soot on your hands
that you wash clean?