from the dream

you awoke

and spoke of us

naked under

a tree

made of

fire

you said we

had died

and found

each other

there

on the edge

of time

bleeding

and fucking

under a tree

made of

fire

and now

after years

beyond

your passing

I imagine

you there

waiting

patiently

for me

to arrive

the black

eyed man

who held

my empty

pale soul

beyond

the storms

of internal

rage

beyond the

demons

of dark

winds

naked

and waiting

under a tree

made of

fire

I let the soot stain my fingertips ashen grey, pinching the corner of a splintered log as I toss it further into the metal pit.

I imagine how tired the flames must be. Most refer to a fire as raging, as angry as a hellhound biting at the confines we try haplessly to keep it within.

But would a fire not burn so bright, not burn so fiercely that it wishes to rest? Because as the flames turns to ash, the wood burnt something terrible there squats it's assailant, blowing on its ruin and trying to catch carcass to cardboard.

I try to clean up its disarray with my own, and it feels as though helping a comrade to its feet around the shrapnel of stainless steel.

I tend to this fire as though its a tangible peace of me, tend it solely until it shows sign of exhaustion, and smile when it lets out a relieved sigh as I douse it before bed. Watching it twirl and dance above the sky top of the tent, feeling just the bit lighter for it all.

clouds came, acknowledged

from the desert, a nod to the sea... shore

combing the hair of our beach... lit

in the wind, seeds like shells

of us, burning the soles...

at our feet, and none

shall ever follow... again

follow the footsteps

like we did... as pages

follow you, like I did

my phantom shadow

going west, holstered

into fatal sunset...

“I suppose I did

love her,” Braelyn said.

A log crackled, spit

glowing flecks against

the dark. She might have

had more to say, but

not to us.

I sat with Ashley in

tree-broken moonlight

watching her sister,

drinking. Ashley leaned

close, shared my jacket

while the fire fell. We

cooked nothing and told

no stories. We sat with

Braelyn, watching embers

fade to ash.

March 11, 2024

You stand amid the ashes, beautiful in your rawness,

a phoenix cloaked in shadows,

dirt smeared across your cheeks like war paint.

Gritty resilience etched in every line of your face,

you are the embodiment of both storm and sanctuary.

You've danced with the flames, haven't you?

Let them lick at your scars, turning pain into power,

fear into fuel.

Each ember, a soft, fluffy touch

against the hardened layers you’ve worn like armor.

In the fire's embrace, you find purity—

a cleansing so profound,

it strips away the veneer of your past selves,

leaving only the essence of your being,

dark yet dazzling.

Set it alight, let the flames rise,

watch them consume the doubts,

the past whispers of 'never' and 'too much.'

In this conflagration, you are reborn,

not from the ashes, but from the blaze itself.

Beautiful, dirty, gritty, dark, fluffy—

you are all these things and none,

transformed by the inferno's kiss,

a testament to the power of fire

to cleanse, to change, to liberate.

when it's cold, let me warm you

feed my letters to the flames

make me eat my words

"I'll love you forever,

I'll never leave you"

let me go, but before i leave,

light me on fire one last time

dispassionately,

let me cook you dinner

let me light the candles on the table

let me leave before you pour the wine

the blood is mine,

kiss me, kill me,

light me on fire one last time

release me

with eyes bloodshot and brilliant

sharpen your kitchen knives

eat me, cremate me,

light me on fire one last time

my smile is warm, my cheeks are red

blushing, burning in the firelight

red, blood on the ledger

mistakes fade into ash,

into the clean black of night

all that's left is:

light me on fire one last time

She dances in the wind

Her vivid colors twisting, pinned

Against the backdrop of the nightsky

A warm embrace, one touch, you die

Ashes to ashes

Dust to dust

Reborn in her trust

The world crashes

Yet you rise

Like the phoenix, a reprise

What once was, will never be

In her flames, gone are the sea

Of sorrows, worries and pain

Everything set to gain

A blank slate

A new fate

An empty canvas

With endless paint

Cremation's afoot

In a mortal's rite of passage

With the guilt and the soot

Only immortality can ravage

I watch through lead glass

The burning of flesh

Sublimating fed gas

To a soul's final crèche

Corpulent dispatch

Ashen crumbs fall to gravity

But the soul unattached

Flees a legacy's depravity

It panics in luminescence

Running from the fire

Suffers trapped evanescence

Incomplete in the pyre

Absolution fails, fruitless lavage

Leaving cindered memories that suffer alive

Rejecting any respite from life's cruel barrage

Retrieving the regrets that reveries revive

How much hotter does it need to be

To cleanse souls' sins that fear infinity?

How long should I burn it, to no longer see

An evil man's soul begging for clemency?

I look closely and, painfully, inspect the bearer

Of a remorseless face begging, baselessly, for mercy

I cannot unsee, vacantly, the eyes of the terror

Of a soul that embraces atonement's eternity

My skin splits,

oozes, bubbles

and falls, sticking

to your polished tile

I hear you weeping

and smile-- now,

do you see the depth

of your insolence?

My crackling bones

wail into the heat;

Your irreverence

has burned us all

They never mention the blinding, searing pain

of disintegrating skin

Falling away from ashen bone

The brief, but brutal mourning

for the life departing

The rebirth is a new spring

New hope painted onto clear skies

An empty canvas to be filled

With want and glory

Every time she rises once more

An ethereal form from the ashes

She is more beautiful

Filled with greater strength and purpose

Certain that this will be the last

The final form

The meticulously drafted version

of herself

At last she could be done

with the burning, and reviving

With the drowning flame

Searing and reforming her shape

Again. Again. Again.

But every new hope

Is seared at the edges

And each new beginning

Always circles back to itself

An ouroboros

An endless chasing of dreams

And no matter how she tries

To dance in water

To dream in dew and grass

The fire always find her again.

And she is lost and found

and lost again

to the flames.