He misses everything about them.

He misses tasting coffee and butter on her lips;

The way she always tasted in late evenings.

He misses seeing her dancing around their room

with the gentle summer breeze in his oversized cardigan.

He misses playing piano for her on special days,

and her smelling like a soaked rose as always.

Does she smell the same now?

Does she think of him as he does?

Does everything they had even matter to her?

But mostly, one thing certainly mattered to both

amid the swirling dust and fuming chaos:

The versions of themselves they had lost

when they agreed to burn in the wildfire.

Their brains were volcanoes erupting young,

roaring at their 20s, and they couldn't think of anything but desired love.

Sometimes, he misses them more than her. Themselves.

Some things run parallel to this longing ache, like his musings.

The waves roll down with manifested mercy

upon his rotten irises,

so tender for the regrets in a wildfire.

-their charcoal hearts were the savage mistakes they fell for, hard.