Seared Flesh
I've never felt the fire's burn.
I've never whispered hasty words into the sun.
I've run.
I've lifted weights, I've danced,
I've even felt another person seize me in the act
Of recreating lifetime scenes . . .
I've even realized what it means.
But as I look at my seared flesh,
I understand . . . I am a fragile mess.
The translucent buckling of my skin . . .
An just within, the bluish blood . . .
A sudden flood of memories.
Desire that this color brings
And what it means that I desire . . .
My first taste of that forbidden fire,
The heart I drove deep into the mire,
The casual brush of a hand against my breast . . .
You merely fulfilled requirement;
My mind did the rest.
Of all the times I spoke to you,
I guided you, I held you in my arms . . .
I never confessed.
Each deliberate pen stroke drives it in:
It will never be.
It has never been.
And though my fragile heart,
My fragile flesh,
Breaks even as these hasty words leave my lips . . .
We can never be much more than friends.