High School Romeo and Juliet

A poem

Photo by Stavrialena Gontzou on Unsplash

As his hand brushed yours,

their passion leapt from the page,

sparked between your fingers.

Everything illicit was beyond you –

alcohol, smoking, drugs — except for

lust, burning hot behind

a closed classroom door,

five minutes of secret abrasion,

mouths that couldn’t stop,

invisible wires that quivered between you,

night after night, rehearsing

the school play and pretending

it was nothing, just for fun.

It couldn’t last.

He went back to his girlfriend,

wondering at his brief insanity,

and you subsided, raw and

burning still, already

tasting ash.