You always could ignite me, from that first splintered spark to the towering inferno that signals the end and I’m done with the double talk because there’s no two ways to put this and yet somehow I think you’ll feign oblivion to it all and you take without asking and you break without buying and I can’t think of a thing I didn’t lay open for your perusal, I can’t remember a time I didn’t leave a light burning for you to come home by and I know that I purposely singed your intentions in the beginning and you know its because I’m afraid of ending up with a candlelight dinner for one and the promises you made sounded like the 5 o’clock news, disaster, denial and impending doom but I fought my way out of that doubt and dismal damp and allowed you to warm me, to move through me, to take freely and enjoy thoroughly and now you’ve changed and you’ve brought those conditions, those little buts and what ifs and because ofs that slip so easily off your tongue and imprint on my skin as surely as any wound would do, and I’d offer you the moon if I had the currency to pay but some things are inviolate, unenviable and impossible and its cruel that you ask and its worse that you came back, when I gave you the chance to leave with this all in tact, you came back and you broke it, you violated it, you rendered it imperfect, you rendered me imperfect and you pronounced your judgment where once you only had a willingness to lay down arms in my presence and you’ve turned your attentions to more nubile shores, more willing, less willful, a cruel bit of malice on your part that I’d always thought you better than and I fight the temptation to carve your name into everything I own just to cross it out later on and I resist the urge to call you a hundred times a day because I’d find myself spun and left dizzied with the inconsistency that you practice and I don’t have the time to waste in these aimless pursuits of the hows and whys and I am not allowed any grace period but instead I let real life intrude, let the crudity of mundane tasks interfere when once they were benign because of your presence, and I find no comfort in sleep and no sustenance in food and I get no joy from being the better person because god help me I still care and I can’t break myself of the habit of your name on my lips and your touch on my skin and your stories in my soul and I’ll fight you every step of the way to reclaim what’s mine and I didn’t come to say this, I only wanted to return some things but I never get a chance to speak uninterrupted, my thoughts uncorrupted by the taint of your charm so I’ve said my piece and I ache for the speaking but I really only want to say one last thing because you know that you’ve always been my gasoline and while you leave a pile of ashes in your wake, and you’ve killed that part of me that I kept whole for you………
I’ll rise again.

04/12/2006

Author's Note: This was a piece commissioned by a friend of mine who went through a nasty breakup -she said to me "he's like gasoline to me" and that seemed to stick -so the prose is based off of what she said to me about the situation and of course, my literary interpretation of it.

Posted on 11/13/2006
Copyright © 2025 Therese Elaine