Beyond What Matters

you breathed rainbows into my skin, I felt your breath condense against my pupils, and streak down my cheeks in rows of mascara-tarmac strips but I haven't felt you for weeks. Your ribs caged me and I lost myself in the depths of the forest growing in your gut. I was a fire of the worst kind, and you were the winds that blew me between continents, to burn in people's throats and teach them to revolt, but I've never thought of myself as matter- I am gas. I am the stuff of stars and Darwin's evolution. I was built from dust. Burned into existence by some natural, explosive force that grew taste-buds from vapour and blasted my web of veins from nothing. you can say I'm the same as any other corner of this map we call humanity but find me someone who isn't afraid of dying, and is terrified of their own reflection like I am. you are a Monet, and I am just graffiti, scrawled on your local skate park but somehow I manage to enthrall you with the shine of my hair, or the taste of my fingertips every time I catch your eye. and I, I'm not sure whether you notice the way my over-grown smile glows whenever you take my hand, or hold my waist without asking. (the part that curls into my hips the one you find with your fingers every time I turn away) I have kissed the sky too many times for my lips to taste of anything but clouds. sometimes I just need a break from dreaming, so I sit outside and enjoy the ash falling from my teeth, or drink coffee at two in the morning. He rotted me. Now I taste sweet, like preserved lemons, or the trigger guard of your favourite rifle. I never fancied heavy artillery, I preferred moths dancing on tiles or whiling away my time watching light glancing off the surface of lakes and rivers, I am too busy to play games or spend time thinking up things that I don't really mean. I'm not going to bend or break. I will sway.