Work Text:
Perhaps I would know what this feeling is if I could
behold it in the sunlight. I could name it, I think, with
the hair atop my head soaking up sweet warmth from the sky.
Perhaps I would know what to do with this feeling if I could
talk it through in the language I heard on my first
day alive, the one the centuries drank my veins dry of.
Perhaps I could stomach this feeling if I could
stomach anything at all, but I am sick to death of even lifeblood by now—
perhaps someday I’ll be hungry enough to let you nourish me.
These are the things I tell myself when I cannot
fathom the deadly luminance of adoring you—that the boundless
future holds possibilities greater than the biting terror I carry.
And oh, I am terrified.
Have I confessed that to you? Can you hear the dread sitting
heavy in my throat when I open my mouth to speak your name?
Do you notice the way I kindle with the holiness of you?
This feeling is an inferno I keep at bay scrupulously, because
at the end of the night, I would rather only one of us be set ablaze.
Although I cannot define this passion, I know one thing:
I cannot bear the thought of your burns.
So put me in the sunlight, zendegim (that, at least, I recall).
Kiss me with the curtains open and toss my coat aside.
Teach me the meaning of sparks dancing between my ribs.
Perhaps I would know what this feeling is if I let it
swallow me whole. I could call it love, I think, with
the fire of it consuming me, changing me, returning me
to dust.