our lives on sunspots (written as a spiritual prequel of sorts to 'two and a universe') i only ever wanted to touch fire, to brush her cheek and let my fingertips catch like fresh wax'd candles that I might proceed to melt into a peace filled, dream-like pain that would braid itself purple and yellow... -we were lilacs and daisies preserved in a mock winter, laid to bed too soon but still tied together at the stems- -we were like sky and sea; drinking the infinity of each other's bodies- -we were pails of sweet peppermint breaths pulled from the wells of each others' lungs- or in a truth, we were caught in the relatively of distance and time, trying to sync to the others' frame of mind--trying to breathe under an ocean's breath like twin shipwrecks left grinning in the eternal stillness of deep blue, blue that held both their faces but only half as tight as they wished each others fingers and bones had while they were still at the mercy of their once bright minds. we were like sunspots on a darker star; their empty wishes; song and sounds that only echoed off the skin that lay a thousand feet above their ears. they were inches away from each other, lying on the bottom of the world, sunken and so in sync that they never knew they were still alive... that is to ponder too, that perhaps we too could be so close... i only ever wanted to touch fire, melt my skin on sunlight and know what it feels like to burn, to know what lumens taste like on the tongue, that we might live within those stories my mother once told of forests of flames that licked the now bare and charred lands, walk on the ember pathways carved through the mountainous flares and sleep with helium for our bed and hydrogen in our lungs. but alas, I live in a land without dawn or dusk on the horizon, a #life without noon on my nose or night on my back. i live #life on a sunspot that lies someplace on an even darker, burnt out star, and i still dream of touching fire, still wonder where you are... #imagery ©mjj - october 26, 2017