words

she has burned with a fire
drunk on gasoline,
thick and dark and angry,
she has a strange lucidity
that lingers long after
her presence has gone,
something with powder
and grime, a slick residue
with a troubled aftermath.

she has chewed up the night
and spit it back out
just to keep the sun away,
she has painted on walls
the wild murals of her dreams
and they were intoxicating
and it was devastating,
to see the beautiful mind
of a strange young girl
so completely and honestly defined.

she has lied more than she has not,
she is covered in art and bad thoughts
like a comic book villainess
terrorizing my brief little time with her,
she has cheated, she has stolen,
she has fucked and maimed and murdered,
she burns down every street she passes
with smoke coming from her lips
and fire between her hips.

she has names for all her demons,
she dresses them like whores
and sends them out in to the night,
she has felt it all,
the sky and the dirt,
she has put her hand in and through
the vein of the universe
and by its coursing she has seen
things we are not meant to see
and she has brought back
some of it with her.

she has left men stranded
on roads, in rooms, in a flash
of shock and shame,
she burns like a bonfire
drunk on wood and winter,
she has crawled home
and she has made home come to her,
she has recalibrated the alignment
of the stars and planets
and all things that please her,
she will never die
but she will vanish in a puff of smoke
and drift off with the wind.

-S.C. Martinez