Incendiary

They kissed, until more than that—

until kissing became a Nothing word

to describe how they fed;

Open-mouthed and needy,

Hungry, Thirsty,

Dirty, Greedy.

Feed me.

And the Fucking

was taking a lit match to papier-mâché

It wasn’t Love.

It was Flames.

It was burning away

until their chemicals

played God with their gravity

and they fell into Heaven.

When it was over,

and the lovers (let nobody call them that)

discovered that they couldn’t die twice;

never wanted to see each other again.

They washed the smoke from their mouths

but it lingered in the lungs,

a ghost of oxygen set wrong.

The sheets smelled like Aftermath;

Heat without light,

ashes without a body.

a trick of blood and bone,

a laboratory accident of skin.

Somewhere in the quiet,

their pulses still remembered

the rhythm of impact.

Gravity, once played with,

does not forgive the fall;

They walked into separate mornings

with mouths unburned

and hands pretending innocence.

But Heaven, once entered by fire,

leaves soot on the halo.

Mercy doesn't consume.

Whatever this was...devoured.

And left nothing behind

but appetite.