At Home, the gas lamp flickers;
bodies huddled 'round its quivering light.

It smells like death and oil,
but after so long of worshipping it
as Safety and Love-

You learn quick to mistake
Hurt for Home.

Let me put it this way, Little One:

You,
of flower petal lungs
softened and wilted
with soot and smog-
breathe in air darkened with Death.

Simply not meant for this world;
                                  for this life.

This world,
this life,         however,
is all you've ever known.

(You are a creature of habit, after all)

So:

When each breath is a wheezing, rasping gasp-

When each bone is brittle and aching beneath the skin-

When each second stitches itself into your being-

You will still curl 'round the dancing flame of the Gas Lamp.
For its warmth is familiar,
the quivering candlelight cradles your face
with the tender hesitance of a lover-

And oh,
isn't it lovely?

To be killed so slowly
in the arms of a Gentle Death,
my Love?

To let your mind be cradled,
carried by hands that are far older than yours,
my Dear?

To be led by a God's guiding hand
to a sacrificial altar,
my Lamb?

I will give everything for you:
my life,
my mind,
my energy
as you consume what little is left of me.

But does the forest cry as it is torn apart,
bough by brittle bough?
Does the parent mourn the child
it never got,
even as their Ghost so stubbornly still haunts
their Home?

(Don't you hear your Child's steps?
The floorboards bring attention to each spectral step.
Does it bother you that the planks that cover my Corpse
weep louder than you ever did?

And does it bother you that it was the silence
that hurt worse than the splinters?)

Does the child have a right to weep
after selling their soul
to the god their parents worship
(to the very god that abandoned them)?

Does that
"I told you so"
sit nicely on your tongue now?

Like an old dog,
I've waited for your return, lingering by the door.
I've waited for the gentle hand of a childhood
that remains foggy and distant in my mind;
How long has it been again?

7 years is a long time in dog years.

If I am to fall in love again,
O lovely Aphrodite-
I beg of you:
Won't you make it soft?

Give me a love
like the first sigh of Summer,
as Life unfurls from cold clutches.
For the days has been far too cruel
O Blessed Aine
for someone such as I;
A poet
with a heart tender as the flesh of fresh fruit.

Please,
O hallowed Venus-
Won't you bless me with adoration
so divine
that when the wrath of Hell below
and Heaven above
swallow us whole
in a maw of magma,
People will discover us centuries later
and find only One soul;
An amalgamation of an abomination
so lovely
that Shelley's Wretch learns to blush
from His pyre.

O holy Ishtar,
won't you allow me a love
rooted in tenderness.
Allow me fleeting touches
and a devotion worthy of a temple.

If I am to fall in love again,
won't you bandage my bleeding heart first?

I gave up swimming young,
although the bite of clorine still clings to me
like an afterthought-
skin soft like summer peaches
and just as sweet.

(Oh-
won't you sink your teeth into me, love?)

One of my first kisses was in the deep end of a pool:
I,
lingering at the bottom
and tracing the tiles with pruning fingers.
Them,
floating near the surface-
christened in refracted light.

(Water fills my lungs now
as I try to catch my breath
from my racing heart
as I look upon your divine form,
so unlike from the one I loved
beneath the tide
all those years ago.)

Hand in hand,
swim into the cosmos with me;
we both knew our feet were meant for fleeing.

(So why does it hurt now
that I'm leaving?
Is it because it's without you?)

You look different in the water-
so far from the one I kissed
all those years ago.

(Is it cruel of me to say
I've loved you more
than I ever did them?)

I'll trace our love story into the sky for you,
mi vida.
Two fish tied together,
bound by fate.

Even though I knew
we weren't living off of a God's eternity,
I still crave the heat of your body
engraved in my future.

(Who knew ichor
was so filling?)



The inside of your mouth is so warm,
mi amor-
soft and supple
       like the flesh of a fruit
      (like the flesh of you)

But how am I to live
knowing I exist to hurt you?

How am I to live
knowing my heart beats
so yours may still?

So
with Fate's shining shears
I'll cut myself loose from you.

(Even though it hurts you;
even though it kills me)

Silver snips shining red thread.
Metal sinks into skin.
Gold ichor spills from holy wounds.

(I pray every night
this hurt you feel at my leaving
will heal over time)

Please, dear-
never forget I've loved you
beyond words.

Never forget how your hands
soft and warm, the shade of tree rings after a storm
still hold my fragile heart.

(Please,
won't you be gentle with me?
Won't you put me out of my misery?)

Never forget:
te amo,
siempre y para siempre.

(Even though
I can't be around to see it)

Until we meet again.

(Please,
let us meet again)

She
is the smoke of the campfire,
warm and crackling;
ever welcoming,
ever wanting.
The greedy, hungry, familiar flames
of a family BBQ-
She kisses the cast iron bars that contain her,
warming the food that will fill
all of those who worship her.

While I

I am the afterthought of pool chlorine,
clinging to the skin
even after the water is long dried.
The sigh of a salty sea
tracing lazy lines in the shore,
smoothing out the sharp edges and harsh lines.

Both of us dance
in the hazy light of nostalgia,
blurring the lines
of dream and ideation
with rose-tinted shades.

Lovely,
yet existing only
to extinguish the other