To love you now is to love you then;

adopting a ticking time bomb and calling it my best friend.

Forgetting that the fuse was lit,

forgetting that I was the second hand to strike the match alive.

Baby, you made my world go round,

oh, how little I knew the world revolves whether we like it to or not.

Your cherry breath was so sweet.

But the sweets ache the teeth now, the games rot the brain, the venom stings the body.

To love you now is to love you then,

and pretend everything is and was fine.

And that

we

weren’t

falling

apart.

 

But

As the world revolves around,

and spirals,

 

Left can easily become Right, Up can become Down.

 

I only feel better as I get older.

To not understand why is to love you again,

where we blow tornados with our mouths to catch ourselves running.

Running away from the reality we have become.

I no longer love you,

I love the idea of you.

Once my world, then my ocean, then my plankton,

your cherry breath fades and I stand in the haze of after smoke.

I stroll through it.

Knowing the world revolves even during my worst days, too.

Knowing we had limits.

Knowing I pushed you to those limits, too.

Knowing my fragility as a human requires humbleness to survive.

Knowing I am not just the author of this poem.

If I am the pen that writes this love-letter to the fire,

then you are the ink.