My Letter (A Light Still Burns)

I. Acknowledgement

it was my first exposure to hollywood, the star-laced sidewalks

it seemed there was always a song on your lips

always a lyric you couldn't forget, they gave

an ethereal rhythm to your hips, as you walked away, laughing, smiling

expecting the worst, as you always did

i don't remember what i said, i don't think it was important

i was too distracted by the light dancing recklessly on your skin

i wanted to be the light then, dancing gracefully against your chest

setting fire to your eyes, clearing the din of traffic

with a mischievous grin, i remember what you said though

as we parted ways without a single expectation

drawing steps away from each other, just to prove ourselves stronger

than hadron collider magnets, we were revolutionaries

superhuman in our willingness to deny the obvious

you were my first exposure to small scale fame

my unrelenting fan, though you critiqued harshly every word

that escaped my stuttering lips, nervously pressed together

not in a kiss, but pursed tightly in thought

as my imagination devoured your skin

we were everything in a moment, except innocent, we were never innocent

we preyed one ach other as snakes, each aching

to shed our skin, to devour the other whole and naked

to relay messages, as if the words were far too regal

to grace our stranger's lips, we exhaled curses

but there was beauty in it, free-verse because we were unbound

by rhyme schemes and inane societal babbling

but here i am rambling, did i tell you then

before, i remember what you said

it was beautiful, and poignant, and i lied

i can't recall a word of it

except that i fell in love, the moment your voice crossed

into my airspace, buzzing my ears with low flying barbs

your intelligence left me dumbfounded, except that i replied with something

so elegant, it left you breathless

eternal wisdom, and romance, and every expectant favorite movie

you've ever watched once, only to rescind the decision

you were my first dose of hollywood, i was

your first tryst with the poison pen

but it was a hell of a romance, for that moment in your eyes

it was telling for it's significance, that it would quickly end

do you remember the supernova that we were

when we were drunk on love, feeding our subconscious

and we were sunk by love, now that i think about it

i wonder if we ever really said a thing

was this all a figment of my imagination

i imagine it was real, but does that really say any different

maybe from somewhere over the shapeshifting clouds, you're home

writing this very same thing, gazing fondly upon

the course of days worn away, as destiny continued walking.

II. Abasement

you were the first language i learned to speak in

the first lover who leaned so close and

whispered to me her secrets

i was the worst kind of criminal for breaking in

misplacing every dream i could wrest

from behind those satin-soft lips

there was a toxicity to our dance, a seduction that led me in

bred within me an indifference, to the ordinary, to those dull blades

that wouldn't dare break the skin

i feigned composure, while begging to align every electron of mine

with the gravitational pull of your bed

you were the force that scattered me upon the wind

and years later, i'm agonizingly sure, i've yet to collect myself

yet to gather my cells, from the swell of my heart in your presence

the hell of the flawlessly requited, whom i burned for her insistence

spurned for her perfection, amongst the mess of my existence

and in the intervening days, i've tirelessly slaved away

at forging a distance, casting a net cross my own hands

to keep from reaching out again

do you remember then, as clearly as i can

the moment my pen touched your skin, the hopeless addiction

to the tragically short-lived, i remember washing the color from my face

in the basin, waiting for you to wake, wishing we could stay

in that state of suspended animation, where the world awaited breathless

what inspiration we might give, i carry with me

every fold in the sheets, the way your golden hair

fell cross your face in your sleep, and the mona lisa smile

you wore on the concourse of your dreams

i bear the weight upon my shoulders, of the tragedy of my conceit

the cowardice of my retreat, when surrounded by your armies

i turned to have a drink, and two more to help me sleep

i burned away the memories, claimed to regret nothing

and yet, which is more accurate, when i wake up aged by the absence

of the expectant breath held back by my lips

in anticipation of the taste of your kiss

when these songs echo in my head, reveries played for the long escaped

notion that an angel once shared her light with me

i remember the weight of our conversations, as each word expressed now

heavy with the gifts that you have given, that i have taken

and misappropriated, so long without the taste of heaven

that i hunger for the apple, just to have you closer

even if only for the punishment, a scolding that from any other lips

might sting, but from yours, sounds sweet, sets aglow

all that has darkened in me

is this all just an occasion in my head, one that yearns to be

brought in from the cold winds, who purse their lips and remain insistent

that i'll not know the sun again, it is

heaven to have known it, and hell to see it only

from such great distance as the present, in which it no longer exists.

III. Missive

this is the first i've ever expressed of this, the first i've worked up

the courage to live, it seems there's something i've got left to give

to the tragic beauty i dared believe, might somehow find her way to me

when i was as lost as i'd ever been

the days are numbered backwards now, the calendar marked with moments

already transpired, i am aspiring to live again

to return what i have taken from heaven, to ask some recollection

of myself, something more than the errors and the shelved

emotions, i have burned my way through evenings, left ash and ember in my wake

turned to the poisons that most knew me, that the world i know now

might fade, and i could sleep with you next to me, if only

in my dreams, i can feel these words so heavy

that my voice threatens to crack, beneath the strain of my confessions

and the stain of my own memories, where passion has been my weakness

and my greatest strength, i live boldly and fall hard

i die a thousand times, every moment spent at arms

i wear my cracked and filthy armor, with the false bravado of a man

who knows not what is lost without the sun on his skin, or the pure bliss

of a lover's kiss on his lips

and here i am, stripped of every defense

exposed down to the core of my own existence

a lover and a dead man, the moment i discovered my weakness

a propensity to shake the faith, of those i most need to believe in me

a lonely soul whose eyes once outsized, the capacity of my spirit

but no more, i come ashore now, rinsed of my transgressions

cleansed of the blood on my hands, a man whose soul has survived

his own murderous attempts

all is not lost on the broken man, who, lauded for his strength

shamefully picked apart his own confidence, no all is not lost

for who i am, for the scars have retreated from my flesh

the heart recovered from the brink of death

see, i wrote this letter for you, and in it i've expressed

the entirety of my views and

the desires i was born with

i have gazed through windows cracked and dirty

where the sunlight is filtered before it ever reached me

longed for a time when the glass was clean, and i could see clearly what stood before me

was you, a beauty who would never fade

whose eyes would follow me to the grave

whose words would alter my very perception

who left me lying breathless, begging another taste of heaven

for those very moments have given me the strength to stand while my world collapsed and

append these thoughts to the core of my existence

i have been given a gift, that i so callously disregarded

so foolishly discarded, only to find it again at the bottom of my chest

awaiting the moment i had the strength

to open it

now that time has come, to undress and address the heavens

and i am stepping outside this steel skin, that i might know the sun again.