Tepid Water

I love in the same way a black hole swallows universes �" all-consuming

Ravenous and bloodthirsty, swallowing emotion like tepid water. 

My love lingers long after it has touched its victim, like a handprint or memory,

Carved deep in the stone skin of mountains, shrouded by tepid water. 

Only cowards fear the intensity of my love, those withering with a weakness, 

They thrust upon themselves, as they sob at my feet, tears of tepid water. 

My love has seen kingdoms rise and fall as the world shatters on its axis, 

Plummeting through oblivion, only to mend itself in my heart’s tepid water. 

Like the floor of the ocean, my love holds a dark mystery veiled by unbidden

Gloom, harboring monsters whose tentacles will drown you in tepid water.

The desert’s blistering crimson rays cannot surpass the lethality of my love

Once ignited, it becomes a fiery inferno, vaporizing your shield of tepid water.

Some beg for my love, a drug forever unattainable, but the love of Arabella refuses, 

For it chooses only those unafraid to die in the perilous realms of tepid water. 

By Audra Burwell