This doesn’t mean what you think it does.

I am recalling a certain January.
Your voice humming melodies in my ears
and you whispered that there was
a temple between my legs and
that you were a new-born believer,
your agnosticism currently leaving
tire tracks on all passageways that
lead to the window.
I knew then and there that
everything I am is everything that
unhinged you and unhinges you still,
and I remember it all
so clearly; you said,

I am at the mercy of your words.
Kiss me like you want my knees to hit
the ground, like the thought of me
standing still is against everything
you stand for.

It’s the end of May now.
There are burn marks around my
mouth from when that filter
settled in five months ago
and let me just tell you
you really can tell a lot about
a person from the way their heart
breaks and while yours shattered
into a thousand different pieces
the surface of mine
cracked and crumbled
until I felt its top layer
deteriorating and completely
falling off to welcome a clean slate.

Pieces falling to my feet
like dead leaves. New but familiar.
We’re at layer number three now.

Mother nature greets a
new season.