I walked down the same streets today, carrying boxes and bags of who-knows-whats and who-cares-whats down the same blocks and the same sidewalks. Wading back into the charred forest, moving in to move out, to clean up the pieces of me left behind.
In the forest I find old candles that smell like history, notebooks living in the past. Records etched with voices that wrap around me tight and take me for a storm for as long as I can listen. I don’t dare drop anything. I take it all in my arms and move out, walking down the same streets that I cursed on the way back.
I run for escape as I take my prison with me, missing the warmth I felt in the concrete walls.
Beneath the rubble hides a promise, buried deep under the ashes. It sits in a nest of ember still glowing warm. I kindle a fire from it, sing the songs we used to sing, and I drown in it, sinking all the way to the floor, six feet under.
smiles →