Fire
You wake up burning.
The fingers around you singed to the tips,
begging you to turn their ash into words.
You wonder where the smoke was.
Fire is a cathartic being
but a cathode to an anode is dangerous, too –
just ask some suicides.
There is no logic if you can’t trace the smoke
but not many people know those patterns;
that’s why you’re always explaining yourself.
You miss when the world knew,
when your compact body and compact mind
were taken for simple –
or simpler, at least.
And maybe you agreed with them, back then.
Maybe you wanted to.
But the tips are still shaking with those red afterthoughts –
embers. You know their name.
You sit down to paper and let your hands bleed,
wondering what they have to say this time.
Quill Aquiver 