the agony & the ecstasy

well done. with a single stroke
of your pen, you defused
the bomb in my heart. with kindness
you snuffed out the raging bonfire
burning inside my soul
as if it were but
a guttering candle.

see, the furnace that feeds my art
has only two starters:
the pure immolation of love,
or the furious conflagration
of rage. everything else
is just wet kindling, the dank despair
of smoldering coal
that lurks and murks and smudges
up the air with its stench and
nobody wants to read that shit,
myself least of all.

I can set myself on fire
and burn everything down
in the white hot, purest savagery
of protesting every fiber
of the way things are,
or I can let the delicious agony
of love purify me with
its transcendent ecstasy.
if I had the choice
I know which way
I’d rather burn.