Love goes up
Like dry maple
With a quick crisp
Pop
And a fast-flip
Fire
The letters are written
On the parchest
Of paper
But it’s not the material
That makes it take
So terrifically
It’s the love in the letter
The sentiment
In the kindling
It’s the past naivete
That I left you
In those letters
That make up
Elegant prose
And so the flames rose
Then what was left
But the trash
That we had
To stamp down
Before it got
Out of hand
I took all your letters
And set them in a pile
Next to my junk mail
And my cable bills
And my unpaid utilities
And the magazines
I never got
To read
A match went down
On the second pile
And it took awhile
Before smoke
Came up
But the first pile?
The ones with folded edges
The ones with folded edges
And dredged up poetry
That you plagiarized
From women
And tried to feed to me
That went up like brush
Like twigs
Like campfire stock
Away it went
And with it
I felt engulfed
Though I was
Far enough away
To know
That I could say
Okay
My backyard barbecue
Of platitudes
That once got repeated
That once got repeated
And attributed
To you
Should have been used
To cook me a steak
Rare but not bloody
With no sauce
And no starch
Singed
But not stuck
To the metal
Only the sticky parts
That add
To later flavor
Just a piece of meat
That I could eat
Knowing the heat
From your burned-out
Bullshit
Provided it
To me
Love goes out
Like it came in
Sadly, slowly
Without much notice
And the smell
Of something
Powerful
That’s now
Begone
You arrived after
The last great love
And so yours
Was fueled
By cool gestures
Like letters
And gifts
And promises
Of what you could give
Rather than
What I wanted to give
To you
When the checks
Stopped checking out
I took all those letters
And put them in a box
I knew when I was ready
They’d go up
Along with anything else
I needed to see
Broil in front of me
It’s nothing of you
Just me
And what I needed
To torch
To send
To memory
It’s not the sender
It’s the receiver, you see
But I guess I should thank you
For sending them
To whoever it is
I used to be
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