Red dust at the end

a desert stripped of want,

my mouth heaving for air

already spent on you.

I sat at that bench

I knew for years

when I still deluded myself.

It rots with red oxygen,

rusted, blood-soaked at its roots.

Your face still holds that stilted beauty

in the Martian numbness

we carried as teens.

Put me in a dress for our special day,

Made of Martian dust.

I say, watching you get married.

Your memory burns on my palms,

red ash harsh against my fingertips

in self-laceration.

That girl across the aisle

is only dust

at the end of the world,

and still you choose her

over anything I could be,

even when I am all that is left.

Request permission to use this poem

Hello PoetryVoting