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Vincent JFA Mar 2017
you take my love
when you take your leave,
leaving it by your doorstep
so you could get yourself in the house
before the weather got fickle,
forgetting it there when
you'd turn in
under warm covers.

it spent so many nights
getting rained on
despite my best advice,
in hopes that you
would find it in the morning,
see it for its sun and flowers,
and want it to be
your daily reminder
of what the rest of your Springs
could feel like.

and I never had it in me
to disappoint my love
by telling it
to just come home,
knowing it would spend
the night fidgeting between
those four chambers
to forget that it was alone.

but that poor thing,
how tired it would get by daybreak,
pulling the petals from its daisies
with eyes swollen with their own rain,
blubbering about how all it wanted
was to tickle the hairs on your chest
until the strange and new
felt warm and safe to you,
and how it wished
trying this much
didn't make it feel so pitiful.

because my love knew
whatever it felt, it shared with me;
and though its judgment was better
than to sleep on wet bricks
until it got itself sick,
it was just hoping to bring me back
something beautiful,
it didn't mean
for me to get hurt.
Vincent JFA Mar 2017
in regards to where we would find
our hands and elbows entwined,
you never did guarantee that
you could answer with certainty.
"Anything could happen
in five years, Vin-
we could be the last two people
on Earth," you told me,
"how's that for an answer?"
well, it's a shame that we weren't.

it's a shame our love had to share
so much in common
with the stars that we swore
were living with us
when we'd ******* in the car,
forgetting how much light years
play tricks on our eyes.

it's a shame that our love
had to be the canary that
never made it out of the coal mine;
though we reassured ourselves
it would come about before night,
the last echoes of those birdsongs
only came from the walls of our minds.

and it's a shame that
when we speak,
it's seldom that we talk,
so I may never know
just what you really wanted to do
with all of this-
whatever it was,
I just hope this wasn't it.
Vincent JFA Mar 2017
so you disappear with the night
without much of a goodbye,
let alone an apology,
before I could speak
whatever magic words
it would have took
for your hand to find mine
for another day.
"I ylno reve detnaw ot
evol uoy reverof,
I ylno reve detnaw uoy ot yats,"
I've run out of tricks,
and you've just ran,
so I guess the vanishing act
is the best that we both got.
Vincent JFA Mar 2017
you came to me
by way of thunder or hurricane
and by the dandelions
you left in your wake, I knew
it was summer when you rained;
so much so, that I am still
wringing you out of my hair
and out of my t-shirt
in yards of November,
my damp sleeves reminding me
I could never entirely whisk you
off of my flesh.
Vincent JFA Mar 2017
you call me your fire,
but, honey, I'm burnt out.
and if I had a mouth of
sawdust and kerosene,
I'd spit on my flesh
to make up for the way
that my flames licked themselves
to ash and ember,
so I wouldn't have to
beg you to bring
your hands
through my hair
and over my chest,
so I could still keep you
warm.
Vincent JFA Mar 2017
the day is going to break upon me
when I'll have to leave behind
the last reminder
of the dedication put into
all the years worth
of skin I've shed,
and I just want it to be remembered
that all I wanted
was to let my heart
find safety with the sun,
and sleep outside my sternum
every morning
without the vultures
coming to claim their feed;
and although existing would
become absolutely unbearable
whenever better seemed to take forever
to do, to love, to find,
I have always tried
so hard
to take it easy on myself.
Vincent JFA Mar 2017
you're Woodside's Arcanine,
and it took me five years and an hour
to finally find you,
and by the time I got to your door,
my skull was already rolling
off my shoulders,
to catch every angle of your rakish design
until my heart burst out from my neck.
and I wish the cold shower
did enough to quiet the fever
and calm the bones,
so I never missed every curveball I threw,
and would be wise enough to tell
when it's time to fold.
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