Bleach and Leather

You slink through Sunnydale’s shadows

a peroxide ghost with a smirk that cuts like a switchblade.
Your leather duster flaps like bat wings
and I’m caught, moth-hearted
I flutter toward your flame of chaos.

 

It’s not just the cheekbones
sharp enough to carve my name into the night.
It’s the way you snarl love like a curse,
spit poetry in a Cockney growl,
and make redemption look like a bar fight you might win.

 

You’re a vampire, sure,
but not the brooding kind who journals in the dark.
You’re a punk anthem, all rage and glitter
You smash bottles against the Hellmouth
just to hear the glass sing.

 

I see you, William, beneath the fangs
the poet who bled sonnets for Drusilla
now bleeds for Buffy
your heart a bruised fist pounds against
a soul you swear you don’t have.

I want to trace the scars you hide under that swagger
to whisper my own secrets into your cigarette smoke.

 

You’re not safe, and I don’t care.
You’re a walking paradox
a monster who loves too hard
a villain who cries at the right song.
Every time you light a match
I’m the one burning.

 

I’d follow you into the crypt
past the sarcasm and the stakes
to the place where you unravel
where your eyes- blue as a bruise
betray the man who wants to be good
but keeps tripping over his own fangs.

 

Spike, you’re the wrong choice
the one I’d make every time.
You’re the apocalypse I’d kiss goodnight
the demon I’d beg to stay.