I pretend I am not sober.

I tell you how you are
the catalyst of my happiness.

I ask you to pretend this never happened.

You cannot.
I understand.

You say I should look for more people
who make me feel this way:

They’re good for your health.

I want to say I can’t;
I say I’ll try.

Shouldn’t have
even mentioned platonic love.

(That’s not what this is.)

Shouldn’t have
lied to you like that.

After everything, you throw your body into the fire and I put my teeth to your neck. A fire of your own creation
                                                        ­               (coming from your mouth);
teeth of my own creation
                                               (coming from my veins).

If time makes a monster of all of us, I hope it makes the two of us sirens – I am so tired of being a vampire. I am so tired of loving a dragon. I am ready to drag warships down to the bottom of the sea and I am ready to stop drowning.

You don’t bite back, baby.
                                                You never bite back.

I say I can burn in this desire and you say Oh, you will. Okay, I'm sorry I forgot to lock the doors but this fire motif is getting to me. Splash my face with water, throw me in the deep end, turn these flames to smoke. Turn that smoke to air, let me breathe it on in.

Let me do that for you.

If time makes a monster out of all of us, I hope it makes us immortal. I hope it makes us gods. I hope you never stop saying yes, never stop biting words off the tip of my tongue.

everything all at once –

the blur of your face
in my peripheral,
passing me by.

the galaxy coming into existence.

(lava hardening to land /
ice softening to oceans.)

your lips so close to me:
a distance
measured by seconds.

the parts of me that hurt
are only the parts
that are alive,
don’t worry.

(syntax: the parts of me that hurt
are the only parts that are alive.)

everything becoming,
everything ending.