
I would have loved nothing more
than to leave you gracefully,
but those matches I had hidden
in my back pocket were yearning
to be struck as I had been
stricken with guilt and buried
underneath your lies somewhere
in the bottom of your soul,
next to the misfortune you carried
and scrawled into the words,
stained with every untruth
and tall tale you had written about me.
But in a perfect world I would have
left them unread, and sealed
with something you loved
a little more than me,
but I am far from perfect,
and I have found that
even at my ugliest, when I was
frothing at the mouth
and choking on your lies,
I developed a taste for it,
the sweet and sour ache
that comes with swallowing
air too heavy with excuse
and your kiss too chalky with pills.
I have taken a beat to dance
in rains hooked on chins
that droop with frowns full
of everything you say
you’re going to do.
Those rains washed my soul clean
and those matches have burned
a hole in my pocket, perhaps I will
place them in my purse,
bury them under pens and trident,
next to old poems written
in pretty journals I have
kept just in case
life ever comes calling
and asks me to strike
my matches in your forest
and light your world on fire.
– Nicole Lyons 2018
Oh, yes, keep a good track of those matches even though there is fire aplenty in your poetry.
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Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Nicole Lyons – The makings of a fire.
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It’s warranted, that you would, want to, strike those matches…
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