Modern Romanticism

A stalemate
between two mates,
two souls,
who held together
their bloody wounds,
their screaming smiles.

They choked
on the wispy smoke,
bringing in air
full of profanity
into tattered lungs
for their calamity.

Bathed in flames,
burning in their hearts
that beat, that heats
the many rooms
they’ve been engulfed,
they’ve clashed.

They are pounding
their emptied chests,
having set a burden down
to replace that space
with their silence,
as one thing learned
from their violence.

It hangs on,
coming down
when mirrors
are viewed,
when thoughts
get stirred up.

Coming back,
only as a memory
to soak down
their helpless hands
in a tyranny
of bitterness.