Elements

by proustitute

When we attempted fire we were stubborn
in carparks making amends with our rings on     our tongues 
out I could tell you how I got here but I am instead intent
on telling you how I am planning to leave      the fire is only
one way out     when we attempted earth we failed
the landscape held my heel like a moor victim until I heard only
a lecture about how you were the victim how your mother
burned your hands with tea water when you were three how you are
the way you are because of this     I must love you you say
despite or perhaps because of this     but when we attempted
water I stood on a bridge atop dead cerulean water with blossoms
blinding me so that I could not see the pathway out 
just as I could not see you as you     the minister sang something
out of a hefty book of magic or of misunderstanding 
I say the things you want me to say because I think
I feel them but when I assayed the air I realized I lacked
the ground     the roots dregs dirt from which to ascend jump escape
and so I felt the ring thrust on my finger and I slipped the ring
on your marred one just so that we matched     but I knew the air
would have me in the end for I was meant to ascend
not languish in carparks with my tongue out my palms raised
to you like you were some lunatic god     weeping incessantly 
as if you had known the grit of Gethsemane as if I should
carry you burden of mine to the end of this rancid world
when the wind and the sky and all that I could not see
when you had bound me to you was my destiny     and so
when we attempted solitarily to resurrect from the ashes 
the bodies were unfortunate but necessary casualties 
auguries even so that  I might see so that I might see 
your hold on me and say no no no in order to finally and
ultimately know