I Developed A Taste For It

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