There's a myth about a boy with lips so toxic he takes a year off your life every time you kiss him.
I called him cigarette boy.
He was like a liter.
A matchbox that wouldn't light unless you struck him the right way.
It's almost embarrassing to remember the way he made me feel.
He made me feel the way I promised myself I never would.
I am an icebox.
He thawed away at the cold.
I am a puddle at his feet.
I can't figure out how he did it.
His hair is much lighter than mine—his smile so much more warm.
He reminds me of the way honey melts when you stir it in tea so hot it burns you.
There were 3 incidents that I knew he would not be going away:
1. Imagine holding hands with a ghost, a loaded gun.
2. Being lifted up in a flash flood, letting his love drown like a brick.
3. I felt like a soaked bouquet of flowers, and his eyes would not stop convicting me of love.
His eyes were the survivor in this aftermath of blood and war.
He had to leave me so I could grow.
In the end we were so invincible.
We had to find something else to mourn about.
He apologized for every kiss with more.
When my time was up, he asked me to tell him a secret.
"I'd kiss you a million times more knowing your lips are the death of me. I'd sacrifice this last act of selflessness to you."
Lace your veins with my vengeance.
I'd come to you every time.
There are no voices left to be heard beneath my skin.
He was an already published novel that refused to have an end.