Matchsticks in a Flooded Room

In my chest, there’s a flooded room

and someone, probably me,

keeps trying to light matchsticks in it.

The floor is ankle-deep in old conversations,

cold water holding the shape

of arguments we never finished.

Still, I strike a match

on anything that looks like hope—

the corner of a plan,

the rough edge of a new morning,

Your name when it accidentally shows up

in my notifications.

The flame flares up,

small and ridiculous against all that blue,

then dies with a hiss

That sounds a lot like “told you.”

You’d think I’d stop.

Any logical person would fix the leak,

bail the room, call a plumber,

Or at least move.

Instead I keep a whole box

of fragile maybes in my pocket,

wasting them one by one

just to see, for a second,

how it feels

when something inside me

remembers how to burn.