15 November 2022

A Love Letter is a Death Letter

The death letter starts with fire

scorched earth burning in the absence of oxygen

a breathless pyrolysis liquid fuel

on soil that is refuge past that is prison

decomposing and rearranging into parts

The death letter starts with prayer

fed only by orgasm vomited confession

the beast insatiable a new word for him

purified dance such vengeful demigod

his circle in the woods a recurring nightmare for her

what is this pain white-hot and mutant

what is this love a forgetting we cannot survive

like the scar she burns over, again and again

an ecstatic pinpoint standing outside herself

at least there: an endless horizon

can you drown in a horizon? she wonders

and can a love letter ever be anything else?