Curse Song: Fire Night

pooling waves of ember collect like lava at my feet

loosening my grip with reality

where soot drifts and falls, gathering in neatly laden derelict

dusting palms and marking wings

You hold me steady, tight and ready

my embers in your hands, my heart in no deserted land

let me burn on my own

let me smolder and grow in your fan

slowly sowed

**

unhand my crumbling walls,

let the flames lick their dirty bones

for you were once both the fire and the light

of what remains of a lost home out of sight--

dwindling in an empty jar on a shelf, a facade

where the two of us meet, for once, if not brief,

the world relights itself in relief

**

if only--if only-- if only to

whisper thanks, whisper gratitude and offer

tender grace, wands of the same wind

of the flame twin

**

let the ash glimmer and shimmer like glitter

amidst your platitudes

in stones of uncut polish

graded variance,

melting from the sides of a candle that burns itself to the wick

**

Fire water pools always at lost feet

glowing where all your energy collects in brimming heat

You held court in a silence for far too long

to be forgotten by a flame who can't carry reflections of sorrow and repent

**

I still think the flame is you,

or have you forgotten all you thought was true

a love that burned through time

not soft, not quiet, not loud or dark

you kept love alive like a lark

letting the air pass and hum and slip into sand, extend your hand

to the edge of a lantern you walk

into a light that never learned to stay