Last Light, Held Between Teeth

The stars are hairline cracks.
The night ticks like a bomb inside a watch.

Kiss me now—no soft exits,
no tidy dawns queued at the blinds.

Bring the sharpness.
Let your mouth be the blade that remembers my name.
Let the clock cough up its last breath between us
and we hang on to it, both hands.

Hold me like glass learning to break.
Count nothing. The seconds are feral,
won’t come when they’re called.

Say my name the way a nail
says it to timber—by going in.
Not a prayer. A mark.

We were never built for peace:
ash knows this, and the matches, and our lungs.
Still, feel how the dark throws us together—
two boats with holes comparing leaks, floating anyway.

Here is the turn: the sky can fall without us,
or over us; either way it’s falling.
So let the salt on our lips be a kind of proof,
a small white fire that refuses to be theory.

Kiss me like the end is near,
nearer than breath, nearer than blood.
If there is a morning, let it find us busy—
your teeth holding the last light,
my hands steadying the struck match
until both our names go out.