By this time you ought to be dead to me.
I have sat through and sung at your funeral
I have scattered your ashes on waves and in mountain pools
I have lived an unsmiling life in a small city apartment and
Once I even stared at the flames that licked up the sides of the room
That I had left you in.
That was the time I killed my parents too
And destroyed my past and my future
With such efficient abandon
That I made myself sick in my brooding backseat
Feeling the void of my creation
Stare back at me
With greater intensity than my morbid fancy
Had known it possessed.
Still you are not dead
And my fevered plans of contingency
Only present to me anew
That loving fear
And fearful love
Are like a sunrise
Fraught with lightning.

Efficient Abandon Your backseat magicks worked; the flames leaped high, curled and licked at the walls with full ferocity, with quick-burning desire, with an ache soon left unanswered by blackened walls and ashes settling in a void of your own creation. Sitting silently asleep, I awoke to flames you'd cast from nowhere I understood, burned as I could not fathom; yet they consumed, and I was wracked by the smoke to tears which I don't think ever hit the burning floor. I staggered for weeks, with fevered plans of contigency rushing to explain, to find a way out, or to pull you back in to... to... to cool the flames in some way, to make it calm again. But the flames burned, and the plastic melted and the curtains smoldered and somehow, so quickly, all was ashes; no rebuilding. With time, I was able to return, sift through the wreckage, to look ardently for matches, for gas, for some reason that this fire burned out of control as I slept. I never found them. All I ever found for fuel was the terrible loneliness of the room you'd left me in, the lure of the phoenix's rebirth mingled with the mockery of the flames&emdash; these endings are for always.     By this time I am dead to you. You've sat through and sung at my funeral, scattered some ashes on waves and in mountain pools&emdash;so poetic. Me? I sat in the back behind the bushes and sang Magnetic Fields songs until I agreed with the words, but sang with an intensity that faded faster than I thought the drama allowed. Somehow I hadn't the energy. I watched your tears fall and saw your red eyes look up with some glimmer of sincerity, of truth, and somehow that shook the last of the ashes off, somehow that let me go. Without you knowing for certain I'd been there, I left the funeral dry-eyed. By now you might be on your way to an unsmiling life in a small city apartment. By now you might be on your way to those same mountain pools on the rarefied heights. By now you might be looking out across a sea of placid cloudbanks on a sunrise free of lightning. Me? I'm wandering off where the lightning went. Somewhere I'm a phoenix waiting for a spark.