This is our city burning.
We were happy here, once. With the sun and sea, and summers we wished would never die. You had come to me, one of those glittering days, like a storm so impossible and lovely—
I didn’t see the blood on your hands, or how smoke and ash trailed in your wake.
Still, you dreamt of softer things; I ached for the same with you; and I like to think we found them in each other’s arms.
If only for a little while.
Because there was the world beyond our window and my love, and, like a thief in the night, you returned to it.
Yours is the touch of fire: it melts skin, melts bone. And then there’s me who never quite learned to let go, so your every conflagration becomes a necessary act of resurrection.
It’s not the first time, the second, or even the third, and I’ve left my marks too. The deep lines I’ve scratched over shoulders and spine, like the march an army takes through snowy mountain passes.
This last time, we’re kissing, and your hands on me burn still. You’re a kiss of love turned savage, salt upon the scorched earth of my bleeding lips and tongue.
I pull you closer, breathe you deeper. Annihilation like this should only ever be consuming.
You remake this place for no new love to grow, making a monument of my ruins so all others know you’re the only one who will ever be here. This is our city burned. But, once…
we were dreaming in paradise.
— Delendi Sumus // (c.ruth)
