La Lumière
My insides melt into a mess of molten wax that you pour softly over my body when I lie drunk and alone in bed at 7am grasping at my bedside table waiting for you to release me and reshape me and make me ready to burn again the next day.
And to see you again there's an electricity between us, a current that's almost undetectable - the voltage of the AA batteries of the karaoke microphone that tastes like your breath, strong enough to be the balloon that sticks to your grey sweater but not enough to create a spark between your positive and my negative but I feel it; can you?
There are clouds that cover the sun we could share, clouds of judgement that only break for alcohol-blurred stolen kisses behind the cupboard door and nothing more but just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesnt exist, right? The sun always shines behind the clouds as we stand drenched in the rain waiting for separate ubers to take us to our respective homes and pretend like you don't set me alight every time you look at me and burn my skin to a crisp.
The filament of the spotlight that flickers as I check my dress is just slutty enough tells me you prefer when I wear black and absorb your light so I don't shine too much so I dont stand out so I dissolve in your background while ballet dancers pirouette through your bed and I black out on the sofa again whispering your name into the screen of my phone.
The screen that glares at me and tells me you can't love me, not when I'm like this, not when I act the way I do and laugh the way I do and look the way I do, not when I can't say no to the 7th shot of Jameson, not when I let myself blow up right in front of everyone's eyes and behind closed doors you think it gets better? not when the silhouette of your shoulders are imprinted on my mind and the gentle curve of your waist and the two freckles on your spine that I want to reach out and grab but you're no longer anything than pixels on my phone screen and I cant touch you until you let me.
Light your cigarette with the lighter I gave you and you hand it back and I feel your skin, and I watch the string of tobacco that hung from the end of your rollie burn and fall to the floor as you breathe in and coat your insides with satisfaction and you turn your back to me, and you burn brighter and happier with each word you speak and every drag you take and every degree you rotate away from me and you let me burn and fall to to the floor.
Why do you let me? Let me burn with you.
My first Father’s Day.