Arson

It is in the soft shade painted by branch and leaves alike that I find you lately. In the scents I find familiar, in the shape of someone’s mouth while walking downtown. It’s in the thoughts that progress and profess like prophets prone to peculiarity, starting simple and serene before ending abruptly with your body pointed one way and your eyes invading mine. I am at siege with the self, playing both the pikemen and the Protestant. I am both impaled and imposed upon to unbury the blade. I am unholy and yet I still yearn for the burning liquid that drips down from your lips to puddle on my thighs. My church is blackened by flame and arson is my first and only nature. My church is a temple that I took and tore apart, board by board and nail by nail, fingers ground down and splintered, bloodied and black with ash. My religion is the thought that I put in to wishing I was different, perhaps less difficult or at the very least a little gentle when dismantling. I think I’ve taken you apart a hundred times and only ever looked and complained about the pieces being strewn about. I find myself constantly bent down on hands and knees, ashamed and yet still craving deconstruction. I think that I see things that I could fix and then instead of doing that I misplace my mind halfway through the whole ordeal. My hands are more in tune with weapons than with tools. My hands were made for taking life. I think that when I see you I see things I want to redden, discoloration and fatigue, frailty and fruitless whimpers. My nature is to ruin what I come across, not always by intention or desire but I think sometimes with warmth. I think fire gives so foul a feeling to the people that weren’t burnt as children. I think the brightness dazzles and dismays. I think that when I see you, I see me. I think that when I see us I see the little boy and little girl that we hide from one another. When I look at you I find a mirror where I keep looking for a scale. I am so used to immolation that in aggravation I reduce the flame and let your love of rivers win. I swim inside the currents that will only ever wash me far away. I think that there’s a rope from some old swing that tangled up around an ankle somewhere along the way, I cannot tell you who has tied what knot or if it’s fate that found its fingers being used. I think that when I look into the mirror I am only ever finding faults within myself and without knowing there’s a mirror I retort with self defense. I burn the body I inhabit. I stoke the fire with the letters that I’ve written in your name. When I think of you I find it fashionably foolish, to think that perhaps there might be another way to go about this season of our lives. Instead of wildfire, wildflowers, instead of burned down deer and empty meadows there could be a place to lay out in the sun. With blankets and with fruit, but it is only ever birds that tend to sing too out of tune. It’s smoke and embers, screaming symphonies and sonnets spoken with the last few breaths available to sparrows and starlings. I don’t think I’ll ever change unless there’s room for me to burn until I notice I’m not doing anybody any good.