we have an understanding
you and I
carefully tiptoe around

no touch waltz game of mirrors
and pretending
we do not see
attempts to follow or to lead
all focus on to hide
enough to please believe

I am worthy of the dance
  

inner thoughts printing press
working overtime
writing stories variations
hundreds thousands
locked up overflowing
when any one would do

finding myself
grasping lighters
hiding in my pockets
desperately wanting
something real
a fire all consuming
destroying what is me
to burn all past beliefs

I would grab old stories
by the handful crumpled paper
dismiss all for just one truth
throw them all to fuel flames
for just one scribbled piece
of any story from you


answers in a conversation
surrendered for imagined somethings
the nature of human loneliness
reading only what there is to read

there never would be fires
or firework displays

no darkened smoke
no burning out
no disappointment

just endless inner libraries in decay

light me on fire
set me ablaze
i let you fan me till i grow big
and swallow forests whole
nobody blames the arsonist
just the fire.

you’re an arsonist
—you never failed to burn my whole;
always setting fire on my body and soul

indeed an arsonist
—you turned me into a thin smoke,
i disappeared; you never looked

These emotions fuel fires,
I get excited watching them burn.
Every time I look it has a new flare,
So bright I don’t want to look away,
It spreads and I don’t care,
I let it destroy just to watch it go.
I sit here tossing more gasoline,
just to smell the evergreen,
It only lasts as long as it burns.
you’d think the arsonist would be the one who learns,
but mistakes don’t make lessons if they feel good,
when you think you can fix them on your own,
you only get so far till you get what you’ve sown.

as i'm laying down tonight
i think of how exhausting it is to wash you off my fingers
even if it's not like i ever get to hold your hand
or touch you, for that matter.
but everynight i have to wash your essence off my fingers
like trying to get rid of gasoline but always ending up
setting myself aflame. and that despite
knowing how dangerous and hazardous that **** could be
you just couldn't stop because you love the smell of gasoline
that fills up your lungs like pumps of adrenaline
right before the stench of your own burning flesh
chokes you to death. most nights, i wash you off like paint.
you can tell that i'm trying to forget what
i bled after your face appeared on the plain canvass
when my hand automatically reaches up and
perfectly colors your lips, and i couldn't help
but resemble them to pastel pink petals
of the roses growing in royal gardens
and i know i'm fooling everyone
making them believe that such expertise
is achieved because
your bottom lip have felt my gentle stroke when i
don't even know how your lips would feel when they quiver
under a curious and longing touch.
so i watch the colors spiral down the drain.
i watch my hands brush against each other
so intensely, trying to scrub the paint gone even
if it won't go away. even if the blood is clean.
even if i look clean.
how can loving you secretly be ever clean?
i'm scared it will never go away.
i am a painter in my own sense, capturing a glimpse
of something so intoxicating and aesthetically forbidden
then turning it into something tangible.
this is how painters show that their hearts
collapse with just a name
with just a glance not meant for their way.
and they paint what little of the hope
that shouldn't have been there in the first place
and every night. every single night they would aim
tirelessly to turn it into something they could allow.
something that could exist not only in my head.
something that i can call mine even if you
don't know that i am yours
and i knew this because your face
have begun to fill every blank wall
in my ******* house and i wonder how it is
possible to fall in love with someone the whole world
believes you shouldn't.
they say that when we turn our hands into fists
it is the size of our hearts.
and sometimes after the long hours of painting
i wash my paint-stained hands clean of
an abstract myriad of yellow and blue and black
and red. red for blood. red for love. red for fire.
i wash my paint-stained hands
turning them into fists
so maybe, just maybe
it will be the same
as getting rid of the colors off my young broken heart.
colors for you.
yet i always end up washing them off
with ******* gasoline.
and you still dare to call me 'smart'

I could light my clothes on fire to rid them of the smell of your cologne
or I could singe my palms for every time you held my hand, but still made me feel alone
I could strike a match against my collar for every time you cursed my name
or burn my fingertips on worn down lighters and let them swallow me in flames
I could let the ashes douse my passions and let the fumes dance up towards heaven in the sky

And if God asked why you were crying,
you'd say the smoke got in your eyes

I hope my name burns you, just like you burned mine
I hope it hurts you
I hope you hurt