volatile

I need no stick to stir the ashes. I need no spark to burn and burn. The dusk slides along every surface, the dusk sticks to every skin. Every breath mingling smoke and wind, the volatile kinship between fire, air and earth. Every thought skipping along that long slow groove. The song plays all hush and pop, that certain same old tune. Lost between the ocean and that devilish moon.

It isn't as though there wasn't a warning. I knew what words were like long before you ever used them on me. They linger on the lips, some goodbye kiss before rising  on the restless tide of that yonder blue. They bind to our wishes even though the world won't agree, they sink into the potholes, they fill in all the gaps. You speak, and suddenly there are reasons. You speak, and I fall and fall.

The sky huddles up above, the earth unfurls below. The shadows paint the cracked and dirty walls with tree limbs and the unleavened sun. We crawl and we clamber, our ancient blood and deadfall bones. The dread ending always waiting in the wings as we tromp and bleat upon the boards. These dreams the only warnings, these words another kind of bind. Hold my hand, as if you never thought any different. Hold my hand, as if heaven was ours to waste.