sunstroke

I love you best in your death throes.

Those fleeting few moments you cling,

in resplendence, to survival.

Seduction in a thousand shades.

Irradiant gold wearing the

faces of other hues, as if

your ray-bound beauty could be a

tether. I can’t help but roll my

eyes at your desperation. I

find your ostentatiousness a

bit much-if we’re being honest-

even with your peacocking, I

love you in your temporary

death. My love is conditional.

I recognize my need for you

at your apex. I’m grateful for

your light, and the life you sow with

your sunbeam trowels. I need you.

I know that. But I don’t love you,

not then. The hues of your birth and

your death, I crave. Ephemeral,

you’re lent a grace your violence oft

lacks. Your birth, I find beauty in,

but you death heralds the coming

of the one I love with not a

single condition. All of her

faces, I adore. Throughout the

hours of her watch, I am enthralled.

You are garish; she is grace. Your

death makes her seen. So I’ll watch your

daily execution with such

eagerness to tend your sister.