Modern Romanticism

A torch held close
burns skin into one
intoxicating aroma,
causing sight to shift,
a heart to reverse
its devotion, its spillage
back into endless,
needless ridicule.

What was I
in your mind,
in your life,
if not another flake
of stillborn dust,
dried with the bones
being buried,
being deserted?

If I could,
I’d tear out
the one memory
that keeps the waves
raping such skin,
clawing away
what I hope
to save.

I’ve been scolding
the clouds, the Hell
I keep merging
with what’s mere smears
where moments are raw
in their revived state,
on the soiled plate.

I keep opening that book
to its final chapter,
to its last page.

I’m disappointed
in an ending,
where revulsion
is the expression,
when repulsion
is the suppression
while I’m closing
a pair of eyes
where fire
is wide.