a fire inside someone's heart

i want you to know that i am not that girl

with a pulsating dusk for a heart.

i am a fever, a waning moon scared of the dark,

a fresh burn, a bloodthirsty sea.

i am not the broken wing of a bird,

nor am i the diamonds drowning in the

lake of your mother’s neck.

i want you to know that i do not dream

of rosewater and the cosmos, but of witches

and their castles and punctured wounds on knees.

i want you to know that despite who i am—

a mourning garden, the sting of a thorn,

a withering summer song—

i am falling in love with you.

and so now,

i no longer want to be that girl.

help me be like you,

the opposite of me,

better and better and better,

happiness skinny-dipping in my veins.

help me love myself,

as i’ve tried

but i keep tripping over my webbed feet.

i saw a lonely fox whimper

at the sight of the moon once,

a gentle massacre, a thundering galaxy,

and i thought how my spine curves just like the fox

wishing to swallow all the little sporadic stars

and glow and glow and glow

and no longer be a fever but

a fire

inside someone's heart.