Author: kelly

letters in letters you left, loose embers
frolicking in an innocuous upward twirl
to: you, a glassblower on that flirtatious gallivant,
breathing shapeless sand into golden honey.
fun, fun and games. you roll me over like a dice

and then i am at once spellbound, whisked
into a game i had always watched behind shoulders
but never joined. mostly modest
breaths shorten, breaths soften, till you
inflate me like a proud mother’s chest.

for every reason i can find to hate you
i have two more to love you instead;
for every thankless task i droop foolishly
like a homesick adult, one too tired to find the
itch in my spirit, the psychosis that bursts like

an outpour of flames to bake my lips into a stretched smile.
annealed, inside me every second of silence
burns my walls into a crisp. shoved
into an inferno, fished out as a pretty vase,
a goblet, a chalice… crystallized into

picture-perfect perfection. the treasures of Murano.

of the sweltering Italian sunshine. of strange nights
spent aching for more letters awash with love
from: you, to: me
of protests, shattered selves in the kiln,
haunting still potsherds of a heart that saw it coming.