Alarm

At the sound of the alarm,

they sat unmoving in despair

their heroes turned to ash,

their heroes wrongly placed.

Out of white sheets they

covered bodies over with branches,

strewn debris, and hoped that the wind

would whisper its respects.

Car engines didn’t stop,

rather ran quiet in the background,

almost soothing in comparison with

the blaring sirens, the blaspheming red lights,

the ash drifting down, glowing, fading out.

The onlookers breathe deep

voyeurs en masse bathed in distant moonlight

goosebumped arms,

unnoticed.

The sky danced its slowest movement

to this chaotic music

and the water flowed in the wrong direction,

time never stopped.

Thoughts looped in their cycles through the night,

the city burning bright,

enough destruction to elude to freedom,

to pretend a faux hope, to ignore the niggling pains,

festering,

ignoring the bones

as they pile up

writing the next page,

pretending such a past could be discarded

or forgotten.