they walk hand-in-hand down busy streets filled with
gasoline and people meeting
she’s a cellar door with a talent for mischief
and has hands in the place where her eyes should be
he’s secretly swallowing the birds and the bees
and has holes in his lungs from the smoke that he breathes
and they’re happy
together

they sleep side-by-side until one day she doesn’t
want cigarette smoke caught in her hair
she learns a lesson in being fair
and mimics the earth by loving in waves
he takes the syrup drip-dripping from her lips
and condemns his affection with slides and slips and
when they reach the train station he tells he’s
escaping her volcanic perfection because

they learned to run before they could walk
learned to scream before they could talk
learned love is revelation and trust is shock
but they still don’t know whether to knock or just walk in
and that’s when word-weapons crashed banged slit their throats
filled moats with blood and angry words and down turn
like off-balance sleep walkers they drifted and fell
apart into the deep end of their fears for one another

so they light matches to keep the spark alive
but don’t realize the gasoline streets have flooded
and soon their third-door apartment is gutted filled with fire
burning down, down, down and the whole town watches
as her eyes grab pictures and things and leave him
with his ring that he planned to give her
before fire and weapons he’d been so sure
that his cigarette lungs would last until he could say
with his last breath give away his heart to intertwine their lives
swan dive into volcanoes together always together
she was the earth tethering him to her
two birds of a feather with one wing broken
the hush of the street below leaving thinks unspoken
because buildings don’t burn without
devils awoken and she was the only one out
alive