Fire to moth, Rust to iron

The hallway breathes

like a garter. Lads with leather jackets

primping their domino lapels,

bound to fall apart.

An acorn pair of eyes finds you—their scent spills

in your bloodstream, metastasizing

first to your ribs,

then your next mistakes.

But you can't do anything right.

And it's too late now—the candytuft has already taken

root, the starlings, already in their front-row seats.

Now there he is. Spinning like a roulette wheel,

clad in his cherry-checked shirt; hair—sinuous like a

heart-shaped climax, in some faraway firmament.

His crabwise fingers always hovering over the shutter,

is it a detonator? I should've left,

the moment the olive tee started to feel like

early spring air, still charged

with overstayed winter.

Yet, I stayed. And stayed.

And stayed.

Trying to make sea on wet grass with rain. Tell me,

why does he feel like a mauve hemorrhage?

Like fire to moth. Rust to iron. Are you, too,

the ruin to my lungs?

Are you, too, the grief skulking behind my lilies?

Say no… say you won't ashen me

like my burning asylum.

Devanshee Soni has previously been published in Witcraft, Molecule: a tiny lit mag, The Rumen, Carolina Muse Literary & Arts Magazine, Green Ink poetry and The Hyperbolic Review. She is 20 years.