Love Asks For Altars But I Burn Like A Match

i always
remember the
first time i mistook
the dulcet desire for daring
devotion—the steamy ways hands
tangled in half-lit rooms felt like sacred
vows…but they never were / the silvery moon
drips waxy light over alleyways slick with untold
stories / paved streets bruise beneath leather soles that
don’t slow down / but i walk them anyway—a borrowed night
a nameless thrill…a shadowy shadow that fits too well / the savvy city
hums like a silent lover beneath my fingertips…pulsing / with neon veins
electric sighs / an uneven heartbeat too loud to ignore / i am a seductive ghost
in an open-collared shirt—stitched from the breath of sweet stranger / perfumed
with whiskey…salt…the tang of almost love—intoxicating eyes subtly rimmed with
midnight’s quiet lies / cheekbones mapped by neon confessions / a mouth that tastes like a
probe no one wants answered / & then—hot hands…harmonious heat…harrowing hunger—

a stranger’s
gasp like static
against my sculpted
jawline—sharp…electrified
a voltage crawling across my skin
mouth unspooling secrets like untangling
silk…slow…deliberate…threading through the
air with the weight of a candid confession that no god is
listening to / tappers burn their names into my ribs / a name
that will liquefy before dawn / but in this passionate moment
it is scripture / it is scripture / it is scripture / (names don’t matter
here…only need…only now) / music swells like lungs before a frantic
scream / mirrors hold faint reflections i don’t recognize / someone hushes
to stay but i was never meant to / (don’t need a forever…just this…just now)
love asks for roots, for permeance / but i—i am the cool zephyr through a cracked
window / the flicker of a match before it burns out / a loud laugh swallowed by the night
& love is for those who graciously kneel at elegant altars skilfully built from broken ribcage

love is a slow
aching bruise that
never quite fades / a
wound we press into hoping
it might heal / but it only deepens
only darkens / love calmly demands
memory…repetition…the weaving of
time into porosity / but i’m not made for
the heft of always / lust is a flick of a lighter
in a gas-soaked room / the raw nerve exposed in
charged air / the voracity that doesn’t ask for names
only puffing pant…only grasping touch…only now / lust
leaves no footprints / only elusive echoes in the dense bones
only shadows behind the gloomy eyes / only taste of something
almost remembered & then the light turns red / a name i forgot carves
itself into my costals / a voice i swore i’d never hear again purrs in my skull
the sultry heat lingers in a way it shouldn’t & suddenly…suddenly—this doesn’t
feel like running anymore / it feels like something just slipped through my fingers
a half-whispered alias…a fleeting graze…a question i almost asked / the wind whirrs
with something unfinished & when i close my eyes / i relish the ghost of a kiss that might
have meant something / if only i ardently had let it / i truly wonder what it would mean to say