They say when you think about someone you “like,” you get butterflies in your stomach.
When I first heard that, I laughed.
I don’t feel butterflies with you.
I feel a wildfire.          
Every word you spit is kindling to the scalding embers in my throat,        
welding my words into bars too heavy for my tongue to lift.                    
I scream fire yet you wouldn’t **** to put me out.
Sweet suffering;
The sickness in my stomach
Like eating too much ice cream at once        
And your heat is inescapable.
Why?
I don’t know
Why?
I don’t know.        
Why?
I don’t know!
Why?
I can’t!
Because the truth is: you could burn away every string of flesh in my body and I would still find 206 reasons to stay carved into the marrow of my bones.
You are not the exhilaration of the fall,
You are the sweat in my palms before I jump.
You are not the volume in my voice,
You are the way I bite my lip before I speak.
You are the finish line on a hot mid-day
And I am the last runner to finish.
If you are a wildfire,              
Then time is a pile of dead Autumn leaves
And we didn’t know any better.
One day I hope you look back and see all that you’ve burned.
There will be people who are rivers and streams and men in yellow
Who will drown you with words and water                
Because they’ve never seen red
And you will always be the only force in existence they cannot touch.
I think you will always be a wildfire
Even when I become a storm-cloud
And you are a timid flame.