I Mean, or Rather, I Want
I want to start a fire and watch it
devour its own lifeblood
like how I imagine I’d devour
love. I want
to cannibalize this house
like flame does, I mean
when fire burns it kills what
sustains it and I mean
when bridges burn the water
below is not the life
sentence it is to Tantalus
and I mean I would eat
my own heart if I could die not
aching. And I mean
I want to die beside someone like
Bonnie and Clyde, or rather
I don’t want to die
until I have someone to
die beside or rather someone
who wants to be buried in my
filth and did you know love
is only unlike fire because
one cannot live without
air and the other
is born to suffocate.
Rumi Petersen is a poet, playwright, director, archer, and lover of blending all these things into a nonsense amalgamation of words and emotions. Can often be found doing improv.