Must I die to be loved by you? You didn’t want me to be yours full of midday excess, where I could conjure a thousand hands and all of them would be yours. I didn’t need to light candles, set no scene. Just the oil of words and the fresh folds of snow forming us together. The disappearance of us in a puff of steam gave me nightmares. I saw you pulse fire from your wounds, I would rather have kissed them than die. I have bathed in salt, and dreamed I forgive you, it stung like a paper cut. There are still flowers here, floating beside flowers, all sopping. I am ready now you are gone. Of course. When I die, wrists slit by the crisp edge of a meteor. Words will be an umbilicus between us, we will shoot regular stars from there to here. Here to there. Burning out like wishes.
Susannah Violette
20
