Love the taste of garlic on your lover’s fingers because in the middle of the night when he takes you, you will remember the way he nourished you only hours before, the smell still seeping from the walls.
Love the meanness in you, the cruelty that makes you relish the sound of frozen branches breaking beneath your feet, because you must know your kindness when it appears disguised as the bruise you swear materialized out of nowhere.
Love the way the coyote licks clean the bones of the innocent, because when you collect every small, blanched, left behind piece and suck the marrow, you will feel how it heals your tired throat.
Love the way monuments fail humanity by boasting of the layers of pigeon shit fossilized in the sun baked cracks, because when it’s time to choose your own grey slab you decide to go the way of fire.
Love the way you imagine she held him when grief took tenure in his blood cells and became the way of his world, because you should never forget your failure to fit into the skin of your desire to save him.
Burlesque Press 