Sin.

And there seems to be a golden flame beside me. Perhaps the one I lit moments ago, when I wished for it to carry your prayers and yearnings. I glance at it now — burning with a growing hunger for your soul.

The ivory wax is gentle, melting with your scent, and my palms cup its fuming blaze, feeling it as a delicate kiss against my frigid skin, mirroring the warmth of your flesh as it softly envelopes mine. I notice the fiery crimson and sunshine hues, reminiscent of the soft innocence in your almond eyes, and my fingers trace the glass as if veiling it from the world outside my own; the harsh winds don’t blow it out — only my breath, when I lean in, when I try to drink more of it — and it reminds me of your skin.

It reminds me how my fingers trembled at the thought of touching you — the slightest. For I recalled your glass-like skin, that would break if I held on too long. But that flesh with hidden cracks would’ve shattered anyway if you had never felt the heat of my skin on your own.

Then what must I do to protect your pretty soul, as tender as a dandelion? It would lose itself if I breathed the wrong way.

What must I do to heal that wretched heart of yours — the one that lied about desiring malice because no soul had ever been patient with it?

What must I do to tame that lunacy in your eyes, to turn it into something as tender as my growing devotion?

How must I hold you without breaking you? How must I love you without losing you?

Such are the thoughts that sting and whisper in the depths of my own abyss. I revisit them each time my spirit longs for its home, even though I return with no answers for my inquisitive psyche.

Henceforth, gently, I blow out the candles myself — to keep your scent trapped in the wax a while longer. For a wildfire like yourself, you keep burning with desire and ache in every passing moment. You let it wreck your heart silently, and then bury yourself and weep.

Therefore, let me keep your bewitching heart hidden within my own — in your redolence enveloping mine, as if it had always been yours.

I’ve slashed away the woods that would’ve reignited your fire. I’ve kept you with fervor — close to my skin, as close as sin. I’m letting you draw nearer, thawing my icy embrace, only to have you closer. Until I melt into you. Until my being dissolves into yours. Until all that remains is the ghost of our lingering fragrance, and the woven silence of all that “we could have been.” Until all my lips can murmur is gratitude — for having wrecked me so beautifully.