Springtime is the best. All the romance, all the blossoming, the pollen-thick possibility of it all. I’ve been stealing the neighbor’s peonies. I’ve been collecting moonlight in jars. I’ve been dancing with strangers who don’t think to ask my name.

Also, I’ve been wearing a lot of black and burning the photo albums, a page at a time, behind the house. But don’t worry: It’s probably just a phase.

Sometimes I bring out the photo of us
infatuated. Us walking blind into the mire, us
in the opium den of each other’s arms, us
in the prelude to the whiskey shambles. Why

didn’t anyone put a stop to it? Us, running
with scissors, us playing with matches, one
of us the outlet and the other bald curiosity. Never mind
the cat, we both know who dies in this scenario. Still

I want back into the moment. The burn of it,
the dare, the shudder, the why the fuck not. I want
to revisit my kamikaze heart and also
the ember of the world we held between us:

a thing that couldn’t last but also couldn’t be
ignored. I want back into the swoon of it, asphyxiated
because that love was an entire life, anyway,
and we never need to breathe again.