I’m a firestarter, baby.
The best part of waking up is waking up.
I feel silence like thin ice so might as well break it.
I’ve got opening lines like other people have
likes and ums and ohs and yeahs.
The world is drab to her and everything
is much of nothing, but I’m her focal point
on fire and she can’t look away.
Come correct or you’ll be taking
hard consonants and soft vowels
right to the jugular.
I’ve got my muse on speed dial and
all it takes is a silky smooth “hey, baby”
for new worlds and words to fall out of
these fingertips.
The more things stay the same
the more I’ll chang-–the world is falling
apart and I just want to be with you.

But they say all good things must
come to an end.
First words, first moves, first loves fade
far and fast and I’ve got a long rap sheet
of resisting the inevitable.
I avoid goodbyes like confessing
to a crime, and have a mind and heart
with vise grips that hold on to every second
like every second could be my last
and my last breath deserves nothing
less than being everything.
I’ve got trouble with full stops,
with cutting off words when they’ve
done enough so I just keep going, relentless,
smashing morphemes together the way
my legs swing and pound pavement taking
me away from decisions and memories that
might as well belong to someone else
as I fly away and forget and forget and
become someone else through sheer exertion.

But let’s leave the past there.
I’m here now in the crucible of the moment
and this is the age of controlled burns, baby.
I’ll finish what I start.
I’ll show everyone.
No more unfinished stories.
No more incomplete thoughts.
No more fingers yearning.
My body is where I am.
I’ll set time on fire and
keep every second burning
long past tomorrow,
long past memory,
until all of my work is done.