No Grace In The Exit

We eat black towers of smoke, never food.

Photo by Nate Neelson on Unsplash

There is no grace in the exit, he says,
There is no love in a body that cannot grow.

I ask for a second chance, it comes
to me covered in bite marks.
He laughs, sweet bells
in an abandoned church, and
a flood washes over me.

So fucking weak, he spits.
I call from under the waves.
There is no air in this corner of the world,
no breath that does not
end in a spasm of pain,
no warning before lungs
fill with water.

There is blood in it,
red petals blooming.
I am afraid because I like the way it looks.

Grime layers on his skin,
green and purple crawling everywhere.
I love the way you glow, I say.

What can we do to save the
houses we set alight?
We are two mouths of broken teeth
kissing concrete, other mouths
that leave poison on our tongues.
Eating black towers of smoke,
never food.

We were never abandoned you see,
we were never children.
Just fading bodies, tumbling
and burning
through heavy-hearted streets,
brilliant cataclysms
into the night
and all that is left
is a shadow
and the echo of the scream.