On honey and ashes:
It used to be
The peace hit as I curled my fingers around the handle of the gas can
“I’m done with this”
A match tossed behind and my shadow splayed ahead
Dances with flame and smoke and ash
The sulfur and the fuel fill my lungs as I inhale without a second thought
An island with “no entry” posted at every charred mausoleum
I’ve made of every man who came before him
“Here lies yet another failed attempt.”
Flicking lighters again and again
Scraping matches across my knowing grin
I am a self-sustained society, population 1
Goodbye?
The easiest word.
Flows from my lips smooth as honey
Until he offered a sip of love from a spoon
And on the breath of a lingering kiss
I learn that
Given enough time
Sugar ferments
The span of my hesitation was just enough
For a touch that didn’t leave me trembling
For the scent of his skin to overpower the charred pages of a book I titled
“Us”
And my whispered retreat lingers bitter on my breath
Flick the lighter, Samantha
What once roared between my ears now pleas in barely a whisper
Every version of me brought to my knees
As he watches
Knowing
Another glass of water in his outstretched hand
I’ll cut my tongue out
Before I’ll say goodbye again
He asked me once to hold him and paint pictures with my words
The world as I saw it more beautiful to him
Than any pictures I offered in silence
His meandering reverent through the halls of a home I never imagined I’d become
Fingers tracing cracks in my foundation
Marveling at every hole I patched and painted
“Look at how broken I am.”
The record skips and loops
But he’s humming along and the lyrics I write promise possibility
Honey turns to mead
But I’d rather be drunk on this lie
Than ever taste ashes again
If it means he becomes a monument to my capacity of self-love
On my knees at the edge of a free fall
Flicking the lighter and holding the flame until my flesh melts
And he smiles
That infuriatingly simple way he always does
Even as the honey drips from his chin
Knowing
I’ll let him rot into the soil he tracked onto the welcome mat
The same legs that trembled under the weight of what I couldn’t say as he held me
“You’re safe”
Every version of me stands
Bleeding colors he calls art
I’ve become a foreigner in my own country
But I don’t need a map to find my way back
To lay flowers at his feet
The lingering aroma of burnt bridges I name
“Hope”
“Love”
“Maybe”
Overpowered
By the garden he’s become