Must I die to be loved by you? Susannah Violette

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.