and oh, love,
you were the phoenix
i had prayed for all of my life.
the corporeal ashes surround
the place where we made our bed.
the unintentional, drunken bed
of adulthood where we
shared thoughts about our
respective lives and goals for
the future
and where we woke up
and stared into each other's eyes, lovingly
then with an awkward fear that
choked my body with the cling of a wet shirt.
II.
And when I told her what I'd done
she smiled and congratulated me like I had
received and given a trophy in Adulthood,
having captured a man that I admired for the past two years
and then slapping me in the face with
well, he's more into
casual things than
shiny rings
and then I felt the fire rise from my feet
and swallow me whole into the cheap carpet
she had bought at the second hand store.
III.
so I drove as far the fuck away as possible
into the literal sunset which hung behind
cold, gray clouds and turned into a burnt sienna
over Interstate 79,
a turnpike with flashing lights and construction
as if I had been on a literal, poetic interpretation of my life
as presented by a higher power
in some scheme just to piss me off.
IV.
And so she sits
in a dark corner of her parents' house,
with tea seeping on a mug on the counter
steam rising
and she sighs,
she sighs,
she sighs.
One day, she thinks
One day I'll rise rise rise
from all of this.
