when the tigers come

There is a magic
in loving to the ends
of your marrow, of throwing
yourself to the tigers
of other people’s words
for a heart more holy
than Sunday sacrament,
that burns more fiercely
than whiskey, in all the best
possible ways.

The truth is
I have always been a firestarter,
always kissed the lit
match, thrown the game
on an account of flames,
let the forest burn
like a candle, hands
full of fireworks
and melted wax,
with just enough pain
to make it worth
the marks
the morning after.

If I am a fool, so be it.
If all my world
has been weighed
and left as nothing more
than ash and ember, so be it.
If you can look
away and not look back,
if you don’t know
love in its rarest form, this
element of madness, quicksilver
and laughter, the kind of kiss
so easy to lean into, backseat
of a parked car
in the middle of our own
Grand Central Station –
if you let fire
slip away like water, bury it
with earth like bones,
then there is nothing
to be said or done. Then
we end here, as if we never were.

But if there’s a spark in you
that you have not outright murdered,
if your kindling heart
has not broken so much
that it no longer beats, if you
still find your clothes smell
of wood and smoke
and your mind wanders
to this girl who conjures courage
in every corner –
stand beside me, when the tigers come.