Inzhuna

this is new. this is new in the way of shocked reflections and wailing newborns, in the way of new lovers and old flames, burning bright, burning fierce, burning out.  coals in the hearth and ashes on my tongue, tastes and flavors and prayers and curses, all burnt out.  their lives are gone, given up for cause after cause, and no one mourns the match that strikes a bonfire.  no one wonders what happens when a pouf of sulfur and oxygen and friction combine.  no one asks whether the match was ready, whether it should be saved or just do its duty. i wonder if emerson's books burned like this, if they sent smoke-prayers down to heaven or up to h

sometimes i picture you with a girl who is not me. i imagine the entire slow tragedy in my mind, a girl who once possessed a younger you and drew you to picturing her face behind your eyelids. cybernetic courting and laughing in the dark, whispering against her lips, touching her smooth face with your fingertips. i imagine how you may have loved her. i wonder if it all happened too quickly and your fall for her was abrasive, thorny, frightening, curling your stomach. maybe your eyelashes scraped apart across the tight-knit fabric of your pillowcase on a morning and you thought against the glare of the seven a.m. sun, i know now, i love her.