The park bench cradled my frail body as I watched the birds, grief clawing at my chest.

She was blood, she was the sunset sky, she was my eyes after they flooded the plains of my skin. She was my first and only and there will never be another.

Her scarlet words left me pondering my lifeless purpose. To serve or to submit? Why did she have to open the door to this ever flowing pit of hell. Too hot to touch, too bright to stare at for too long. But stand close enough and the warmth of her existence will become an itch you can never quite reach. Gone now just like that. The glowing sunset in its fleeting moments of light reminding us what life would be like if not for her ever giving passion, the reason my heart beats. Still beating now, against it’s own will. Her absence a dark voide that is a deepest blue, not quite dead.

Blue my days are, the darkest kind, the deepest angriest parts of the ocean raging eternally for the unjustness of it all. That they must be hidden away in the quiet forgotten parts of the world while the light can dance on the surface with all the life it created. Blue like the bruises decorating my shallow skin, reminding me of the life I am teathered to. To serve or to submit?

Our whispered words forever hidden by the flames. The forbidden universe between us forever real though no longer accessible. I yearn to feel the heat of her flame once more. But there will never be a flame like hers. She was hot like summer, I was winter, she was the soft glow of morning, I was dusk.

I reached into my pouch and scattered another handful of seeds to the birds at my feet. She was my scarlet tanager and I was her bluebird.