We once burned

i let go

cast our ashes to the wind and for the first time in too long

find peace in knowing this dark dust once burned bright

when i come to life again i find

i am not the aftermath of you

after all.

i found myself.

i broke

what i could, learned to love destruction, or pretend to

made a hobby of burning bridges, revel in the heat

traitor to myself, i scream out and wonder

why it still hurts, why

i am alone

i broke

down.

i broke

like glass, like splintering wood, like fractured mirrors

reflecting phantoms of what we could have had

who i was and could be

who i am

you turned from me

the moment you chose the ashes over the hearth, reveling in consumption,

corrosion over light. your tongue is yet sharper than the knife

embedded in my back. i wanted to have you

but you wanted to own me

we rebelled

our love was an uprising of butterfly kisses, conspiratorial caresses. i set us

on fire, and your heart begged to burn. we were hungry for each other’s

breath, oxygen filling, feeding the fevered flames

of visceral vulnerability

i fell for you

the way a glass shatters when it tumbles to the ground. like glass we were blown

away, igniting, melting, shaping and reshaping. i would bend for you alone

if i could, but we forget how sharp our shards can be,

and you liked me best

in pieces

i used to know you

you’d take your coffee black, and sip it slow. you liked the fall, and the night, especially

together, talking until the stars turned, hiding in the back of the closed library,

sharing secrets in the dusty dark. i didn’t learn then the dangers

of black holes, only caught the beauty of them in

your grey, have-nothing eyes.