Burnt Static

We lit sparkers behind the trees.

Your hands were shaking, but you smiled anyway.

I wore a cheap leather jacket--

like it meant something,

if you looked at it right.

​

By morning, we were just wrecks with sunburns,

Doomed from the first light.

​

Lips start to sting, grasping for the ash.

You dared me to play a part,

knowing it was fake.

Chandeliers and meltdowns.

​

Memorizing lines

between silence and compromise,

soft-spoken subtitles.

​

I blink slow in the mirror,

rehearsing my reactions--

high on the hush,

and burned out from the rush.

​

Behind the flare,

cold ash settles beneath

the magic trick:

making your own mess

look like a movie.

​

Sunlight lurked across the wallpaper.

We didn't speak--not out of spite,

but out of knowing

too much would come out wrong.

 

There was this weight in the charred stillness

after you stop pretending.

 

You packed your bags like a final scene--

slow, every moment considered, no music.

I stayed behind to finish cleaning,

just to have something else

on my mind.

 

Later, I will tell it differently:

better lighting, in focus.

The jacket can be holy for real.

You'll have steadier hands.

I won't stutter in the foggy mirror. 

I'll nail the final line.

​

But for now--

it's just ash stuck to my lip oil,

aloe on my burns,

and silence still burning

past the ending credits. 

​

​