I am the fire king, nourished on tendrils of burning loss. Smoke animating my shuddering presence, I dance to the rhythm of misfortune and scare hope away, tearing into dreams with a carrion-stained beak reeking of swallowed torment. Yet I starve here in the long grass of distant retreat, the days unkind to my crown; the rust of my own failure barely sustaining a withering pulse. Love more, fool! Feel that magnetic pull again and fall into orbit again, trusting kindness and magic lust that swells sex and drives hands to cup, grip, squeeze and coax. Taste desire, drink from it and drown in the tantalizing seduction that is life, that is love’s promise. So that I might feast again at its end. So that I can gnaw at another dark corner of a charred heart. #metalwork #notmine #austintx #latergram #art #birdking #freaky #poem #poetry #writer #writing #literary_imagery1 #literary_original (at Pain Eater)