Heather T

letter burning

the door cracks shut and I am sealed

left to the vacuum of these dreams

no pillow for suffocating echoes

their ghosts rattle poison through the seams

 

would have been could have been should have been

 

where the glass lay shattered slowly bleeding

reels looped in cruel teeth gnashing nip my heels

 

\"baby\" it said

\"when we make love\" it said

 

violates my flesh and I am still-

 

I have singed it all a thousand times while sleeping

and stitched together ashes in my sin

to have the flames for pleasure licking hatred

just to feel and scorch it all again

 

you are smoke

 

green skies streaming smear the cinders

leak their rivers screaming as I curl

into paper only paper it\'s just paper

and you can\'t smell the charring as I burn

 

I am smoke

 

for all the blackness of my fingers

that only years long scars aren\'t blind to see

I sketch you whole again in charcoal poems

on the floating fragments left of me

 

we are smoke only smoke can you love me through the smoke