How to burn it away

you should never play with fire

It burns and it sears and it scars

It destroys everything it touches

But when it is not playing.

When the smoke billows high and the flames reach for your body.

When it is cleansing this putrid body

I burnt my clothes recently

I set fire to them and torched them

The flames leapt high the heat bore deep and the ash filled the air.

When the flame is hot enough to dry my bones

When I cannot tell the difference between the shear agony of my bones splintering

And the agony of how it felt where you once touched me held me or kissed me.

Where it blistered my bones so I can no longer feel in these areas

Where it destroys these nerves that once traced your skin.

The smoke filled my lungs and heart

Enough for me to not be able to distinguish the pain

Enough for me to blur the lines between the smoke poison

And the love poison.

How it took my lungs and dragged the air from my body.

I can no longer tell between the burning of old feelings

And the burning of my lungs.

When the foul smell catches the back of my throat.

When it chokes me up till I can’t talk

And I can hide the feeling of the blocked throat I get

Every time I hear the name, when I hear someone who sounds like you, when I hear every step you took into my home.

When the smoke creeps into my eyes

And I can hide the tears.

Because these aren’t tears of regret nor loss nor unheard feelings.

Not tears of confusion not tears of fear and not tears of hatred.

They are tears of ash. Tears of embers. Tears of crumbling debris

Tears of my singed eyelids. Tears of my burnt retinas. Tears of my lost vision.

And though my vision may return within minutes if only I stand clear of these pillars of smoke.

it only stands to remind me that I cannot burn the sight of you from my mind.

When that thick carbonous smog clings to my blood vessels,

And I can say “you caused this”

When I can finally say. “This is what you made of me”

“This is the torched flesh. The charred bones. The lost vision. The baked skin. The empty lungs. The scorched hairs. The corrupt heart,

This is what you left”

Because fire doesn’t just destroy.

Fire heals. Fire takes these thoughts, these feelings, these pains and these memories

And it lets me be free for a time