Burned

If you wanted to set your life on fire,
there wasn’t a better combination.
Kerosone and a book of matches,
classics for a reason.
All I needed was to wait
for a dry night.


Our love affair had started slow.
The sparks were there,
just a few at first.
But once they caught,
the flames swelled into the sky
and embarrassed the sun.
They flared, radiant, nature outdoing itself
to create something so lovely.
We burned, entwined, not minding
if it led to our destruction.


But fires do not last forever.
The flames ate what they were burning.
Inevitably, we faded, shrunk,
became unrecognizable.


So, you see, this was the only way
that it could end.


Watching, I feel the heat, like a winter blanket.
The smoke smells like campsites, laughter, memories.
I hear the crackle as the walls fry.
My eyes are dry.
A shelter mutates into a furnace.


I imagine his face
As he sees what I’ve undone.
My mind warped in that same way
When I learned of his deception.
We are annihilated.


Sirens slice the dark.
They may come for me but
I will not run.
I will attend this funeral
Until it’s done
And lay my heart to rest.



Writing Prompts:
Mandatory opening sentence: “If you wanted to set your life on fire, there wasn't a better combination.”

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 3, 2018 at 10:01 PM

    and embarrassed the sun...... what intense fiery lines.
    there is so much passion and wanting to the point of destruction. well-written.

    ReplyDelete
  2. NateOctober 4, 2018 at 8:25 AM

    I like how you've constructed this around the central metaphors of a fire at the start of a relationship and an physical fire at the end. It lended itself to some affecting lines like "embarrassing the sun" and waiting for "a dry night" and "my eyes are dry." The weakest parts for me were the stanza that starts "so, you see" and the last line. The second person address takes the reader out of the intense situation the poem is building to and acknowledges another POV, the reader, which seems unnecessary. "I will attend this funeral" is a stronger ending, IMHO.

    ReplyDelete
  3. D3athLilyOctober 4, 2018 at 4:05 PM

    There is so much to love in this poem. The gorgeous words, the metaphorical and physical flames, the fizzling of a relationship. I don't know much about poetry, so I go only by feel when I read them, and this made me so sad for the MC.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michelle LongoOctober 4, 2018 at 4:46 PM

    I like the line "as he sees what I've undone." I think most would default to him seeing what was done (the act of setting the fire), but using the idea of the fire as the undoing worked really well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. JenOctober 4, 2018 at 7:30 PM

    Thanks for the comments, everyone! This is, like, the second poem I've ever written (that wasn't a limerick) so I love the advice!

    ReplyDelete

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