You know how to love where it hurts,
to run your silken fingertips against my twittering heart,
to soothe my cascading tears and mend wayward rapture,
entice me with gentle nothings and whisper my woes to slumber.

You know how to hurt me where I love,
to sever and unravel me like a kitten to her yarn,
to taunt and tease with ardent covenant,
regurgitating excruciating fabrications of ardor.

You seize my affection and mercilessly caress it,
fanning the blistering columns of white-hot flame,
dousing it with kerosene to nurture and feed,
only to smother the intensifying ember with a glacial sting.

You shun the embrace of warmth it invariably provided
and it isn’t until you are numb with anguish that you bemoan.
It isn’t until I have already been scarred by the flame’s backlash
that you return to play again with the matches.

You know that, being the amorous servant I am,
I will unhesitatingly provide a spark to revitalize the flame,
no matter how fickle the reciprocation of it’s devotion.
You know I can do nothing now, but burn away.