Flowers bloom in my lungs white like a frost covered morning, their roots weave intricate walls around my heart protecting it. But although they look pretty, I find I cannot breathe. the white suddenly seems more like fresh gravestones and the roots choke my heart in a thorn lined cage.

Maybe that boy just wanted a taste of the sun.

They tell me I'm fussy; with lovers, with books, with music. I tell them that I would rather freeze than be barely-warm. I tell them that if it doesn't set me on fire, then no thank you, I don't want it. It's taken me years to confess that I would rather be alone than settle. The truth is, I cannot stand the taste of in-betweens. Half- measures will never be a part of me. If it cannot fill me up to the brim, I don't want it. I will only ever be empty or overflowing and I'm okay with it. And they say, girl, how do you think a wildfire starts? From a spark. Relationships need kindling. And I cannot make them understand than I am not afraid to build on things, to work hard and relentlessly on something, but I must stop apologising for the fact that, truth be told, I cannot seem to want a love that does not engulf me. Someone once told me that when you've tasted fire, you ache for it, no matter how badly it burned your tongue. They weren't wrong.

Maybe Icarus knew what he was doing all along.

/'god / es/
noun
1. you know what it is to be holy. deep veins filled with ichor ache for wounds the earth feels, lightning storms and hurricane pain walking hand in hand across a ground you helped design. the thousand voices that scream your name in both battle chant and song. their lives are not a game but you play anyway.
2. you are sharp edged steel. a lone fragment of a shattered mirror, the broken bone reflection of a cruel smile. all that you are is ripped edges and cracked glass but your heart still throbs with lioness blood.
3. ichor drips from your fingertips, gold glistens on your lips. you took to power like Icarus took to the sky and you know your fall will be just as sweet.

/pes/ti/lince/
noun
1. we are little gods unto ourselves. locust-eaters, fire-bleeders, laughing wicked boys with figs in our pockets and honey-stained mouths. we ride on our white horses through villages that will be nothing but the ashes of the sick once we leave.
2. our laughter tastes like victory. you can't help but stare, we look so holy glowing in the light. go on, tell us how we are beautiful, ghost- like, how our skin reeks of thunder, how you make love to us and feel your body turning inside out with fever. how you are so hungry to give up your soul one sickness at a time. go on, surrender.
3. we wear crowns given, not taken. take life instead of giving it. we sweep through villages like contagion, and we always conquer. conquer, conquer.
goddess

/ka / THär / sis/
noun
1. your head pounds. your heart pounds. your fists pound a bag of sand, over and over, again again again, and you hear bones crack that are not your own. the crimson blood on your knuckles is no less satisfying than if it were his.
2. the end of the year brings a summer bonfire with all your classmates. the faces blur together with one too many beers. you throw back your head and yell like a banshee, like a wild thing. I am free now, your scream says. your classmates howl with you and their earth-shattering chorus of no more goes on for miles.
3. poetry, photography, acrylic paint, short stories. you create everything you can to escape the destruction you left behind.

/ dev/ i /steijn/
noun
1. shadows wreak havoc under an oil-black sky. what once was a gemstone of a city, shrouded in a film of dust & decay. i linger in the aftermath of a bomb-swollen storm. a thousand babies are buried beneath the ruins, wailing for mothers long gone.
2. war is a plague. i see more and more phantoms with eyes like the void, haunting the streets after twilight. an orchestra of bullets patter on my window, sliding down the glass like rain.
3. the emptiness of my home was a lot to bear. but when they set it ablaze, i salvaged my soul from the ashes.

/gref/
noun
1. the pain says, i have come for you, and you say, you are too blinding, I don't want to look.

2. your chest is a wall of fire. the pain says, I own buckets, and I own torches. you pick torches.

3. your soul is a wall of thorns. the pain says, what can I do for you? you say, nothing. this is dream from which I know I will wake.

4. your heart is a wall of storm clouds. the pain says, I will lend you my shoulders and my hands. you say, I don't have strength in me to touch anyone yet.

5. life shivers, melts, moves on. the pain says, I have come for you, and you look upon it and say, yes, I’ve kept you waiting too long.