Chemical Instability

[9] swingset

He's so clear to you,

stepping out of the pearl mist

with an air of innocence

and the stench of nicotine in his skin,

the press of your hands

against soft leather

and your fingers in his cropped sandy hair.

You're sitting on a squeaky swing set 

in the dead of five a.m. January sixth

and he turns to you with his hazel eyes 

that do something to you

and grips a grass green swing and says

"I don't think

I could live without you."

And you blush and blame it on the chill

and you glance around

and tug him over to you

and know

the stubble on his cheeks

the lure of his song

the heat in his eyes—

he's been yours all along.

You don't stop to think

that this boy swallows glass

and you can't save him

and he's a walking car crash,

you don't know that the cloud of cigarette smoke

is an electric shock pen

that he clicks and clicks over and over again.

You don't know that this boy

is behind the scenes, pulling the strings,

is the master of his own demise,

is the moment between life and death

when all you need to do is take a breath

but there's a catastrophe in your chest

and you're trying to fight the emptiness

but there's nothing left to fight.

You don't know, when you bury your lips in the pit of his chest

this five a.m. on January sixth,

that you are signing your death contract,

or that when you pull away a moment later

his mind isn't spinning like yours is,

or that you don't know how to defuse suicide bombers.

You don't know anything.

All you know is that you're in love

with a suicide bomb

whose smile is sunshine,

and all you can think is,

"he has always been mine."