Modern Romanticism

What has released us
into the wide-open?
We've been drinking
nothing but emptiness,
dust and air,
pledging to become
all that we've feared
returning to,
being nothing other
than knots in our hair.

For love, we choke
on sugar-coated smiles,
where words will just
form the buildings
that lengthen shadows.

I whisper, I've knelt
to offer a soiled prayer
to skies, brimming with
patterns that match
our circular anticipation.

We fear what we
might become, under this
bleeding sun, one that
has bruised the horizon,
in setting twin hearts.

All we can hope to be
are burning wicks,
loosening what we
have burned out,
in our shielded minds.

Smoke becomes the fog
that decorates the space
around our feet,
upon this invisible path.