My moonshine Romeo, I’m drawn to you

like flies to a body, tangled in your orbit.

Your eyes are dark like the smoke

that rises from a car crash:

a sultry sulfur that I could get lost in.

I see that color everywhere, but mostly

in my dreams, where our scorched bodies

are swimming in it.

I remember the tender version

of that day. Picking glass out of your hair.

Cleaning your wounds with my mouth.

We scraped our knees

tumbling into paradise

like the first birds to fly (and to fall).

But it was good for a while, wasn’t it?

The two of us dancing

like we knew no forest floor.

My sunshine guillotine, what changed?

It used to be you and I, killing time,

drunk on diesel and madly in love

with the idea of death.

(with each other, of course).

They’d scrape off what was left of us

like lovebugs on a windshield, until—

—a twist of fate like the twist of a knife.

You were holding it white-knuckle tight

(I’d never felt so fucking jealous).

My demolition darling, you make me proud;

I couldn’t have broken it better myself.

                I think you left the knife

                somewhere inside of me—

I’m tearing myself apart just to get a good look.

I won’t ask why you did it. I don’t want to know.

I don’t blame you, either. This is the truth:

                you beat me to the punch.