candles smoldering like wine (you turn me on)

candles smoldering like wine (you turn me on)

Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out! — for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles Laura — and so goodbye
—Tom, The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams

Wanting not to want you won't make it so—"You Were a Kindness," The National

i have not shaved in days

a face lonely as lightwood

and i have had my candle

extinguished over and over

don’t let anyone blow out your candle

and share your pinot noir carefully

i imagine whispering to you beside me

rubbing my face over your white skin

those red marks not you or me

but how we kindled into us

•

and if i were to kiss the back of your hand

could you know the fire you light in me

could you walk across the embers of my mind

barefoot and my sole reason for being here

because i am on fire and lying in the ashes

of all that has been incinerated beneath me

the soot on the palms of my hands leaves black rings

around your ankles where i hold on to the joint of you

and when the lightning strikes around us like Armageddon

no one will turn away from the brilliance of us smoldering

•

the wine they shared tasted smoky

warming their lips and tongues

into the center of them both