“why me?”

i’m breathing now that ours falls in line. but sometimes my soul still flutters away. chews holes across gardens and returns to be swallowed again, and spit out as an “i love you.” you’re the flame it flutters to. on clandestine evenings, your memory lingers like petrichor after i’ve become the luckiest person in a thunderstorm. when our cheeks are powder and a puff, brushing, stirring together, lips blending, teeth sculpting, when it’s barely enough, it’s reality, finally palpable. when you outline it, i feel my skin take shape. when you say “i’ve got you,” i curl up like a dog in the crate of your palms, something somehow more human than anything. somehow love is a cycle more entangled than hate, something skinless caressing you, something blind flying beside the stem of lightning with the key to life.