A Man on a Cliff

I am a blocked volcanic crater

I burn my own skin

Going dry, going slim

Going all the way to him

I am the waiting siren

At the end of your swim.

I am the stone that kept you

On a cliff

You’d think you’d fall from a breeze,

Or a passing whiff—

But darling, not even a firestorm

Could unleash your tethered feet.

Suffocated in vain—

I prayed for the droplets of your rain

To slowly dissipate my heat

And cover me in mist

And all the feelings I missed.

The man of charcoal and ashes,

Still hanging on a cliff

Blind, deaf, and stiff.

Darling, the lavas are stepping closer

To burning you,

Burning me.