IOU (Poetry Preview)

the mythology of kisses

I once reached up into the sky and dragged down a star with the intent of breathing the molten gas out of its lungs.

instead, it ends up freezing over – and stains me with the aftertaste of a rotting body, waiting for her lover —

leaving me to wonder, wander, discover

what rests beneath all the unsaid, the unforgotten, lining my throat in crusted up layers as it leaves to find its rib. the missing piece.

and I still taste that year's summer, some of its broken pieces still caught in the words I utter mid-bites, glittering right between the gaps of my teeth; stuck from when I once laughed into its bristling murmurs against my cheek that have stained me with faint whispers of what could be, and its remaining light shines just enough to warm up something that has grown cold the moment it was found. the betrayal softens, the serpent coils away when its constricting heat melts the bitterness crowding my mouth, the shards of crystallized nothings, drowning all the buds it has left to grow past the fences – the garden it could've grown.

how do heavenly bodies forget where they leave their other half?

and how does one, as mortal and as human as it is to defy what's ruled, return a piece of the star if it chose to escape before it understood you held its soul in your palms like a prayer.

is it only natural to harbor venom to fill its stead?

if a snake bites you for falling into its trap, is it not faithfully innate for you to kill it without worrying about the blood on your hands?

"The Mythology of Kisses"

© Rizu Lu
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