our years added up

by W.M. Butler

if i could shed you like skin leave the last of you to blister in the sun a husk of my time spent exposed to the elemental cost of our years added up

there would still be the rain bleeding smudges of neon on the streets beneath the taxi’s tires the threading of my fingers beneath your dress your breath snared in the thrust of my collar bone 

we alone in this world understand the tragic mistake of falling in love with each other the knowledge that anyone we touch afterwards will be a shadow of a shadow of what we did to each other’s bodies the traces we left on the other’s mind 

we cannot be dulled by tides or distance or a new love that will not burn us like we burned when blue eyes sparked in a future city that was already lost 

when we arrived.