Skin a squamous knowing against me,
I slide off of you, dragged back like the carcass at your lips,
The embers falling downwards

There was a fire in Black Forest, more than a decade ago,
Ashes white and fleeting. The fire lasted days, alike,
Yet entirely unlike the stutter of snow, the flutter of its debris,
The shedding of the sky upon Earth. Love is a flurry attempting to warm itself,
Cinder, a flesh flayed in mimicry, hollowing its entrails so as to reinvent longing.

Years passed and I burned my arm on the stovetop. It piled over, sizzling and serpentine,
Striped down in red and didn’t leave. The burn peeled back at threads of skin, allowing muscles and organs to splay themselves into welcoming hosts,
Homes derelict, yet expertly decorated, prepared just so for phantom breaths,
Emptied gas canisters, hot and heavy under our tongues, and you weren’t there.

You weren’t there, and I am thankful that you aren’t here now.

Love and The Arsonist, where we are both the house aflame and the home extinguished. I am thankful that,
Despite the years of absence and generational ricochet,
I have still felt the flocking of wings at my chest. The newness of spring beside me.

I am grateful I never had the chance
To lose myself in you.