I'll give up the ghost soon enough.

But right now you still taste like wine
and too many sweetnesses I cannot name.

It was the last time that stars
were radiating in your eyes,
ghostly flares like a hearth glowing
as this engine sped us through the valley,
through that winter when we first met.

I need to hold on to that cold now
to remember how warm you were.

And if we rewind from there,
back to your small room where
the softest music floated and your body
seemed to frantically envelope mine,
hands cupping my face so tightly
as if you held on to an entire world,
there could be no comfort in the telling.

Better to let that moment speak for itself,
through racing hearts and feverish pheromones,
where our cautious initial caresses gave way
to the brilliance of a frenzied undoing.

It would do no good to confess that I would cling,
that time with you was a dark river
flowing into all that I would become,
that I would find too many shards of you
inside of every lover afterwards.

I'll give up the ghost soon enough.

But right now you still taste like starlight,
too many bursting rainbows to keep track of.

It was the last time I saw
how beautiful scars can really be,
how they are maps to be traced and understood
rather than being an engine driving us
away from the heart, away from the valley.

From that winter when your warmth
promised to never let me go.

And even if we rewind from there
before you were too far away to hold,
I need to hold on to that pain,
I need that scar to match mine,
for it to glow and be a compass
to make me remember exactly who you are
in a way no one else can ever unearth.

It'll take me back to that small room 
where we were motionless after,
invincible and raw with love
as the softest music stopped,
but a tune hummed from your parted lips
and the notes would become an echo chamber
saying everything I needed to know,
it also said there would be no comfort in the telling.

Better to let that moment tell its own story
through the unguarded way we spooned,
form forever tuned to your limbs,
it would do no good to confess
that this frenzy forever changed me,
that this pheromone burns past 
all other memory beyond and through skin.

I can feel it in the way your hand claps
and don't know if you've ever forgiven me,
it would be the first and last time
that I ever kept a pang as a dark secret
when I couldn't tell the difference
between what I want and what you need.

I'll give up the ghost soon enough.

But right now you're still all I taste,
I need to hold on to that,
to remember you beyond winter,
remember how you wrapped around me.

Even if there may be
no comfort in the telling.