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Flame: A Sestina
I gaze up from my computer and try to breathe
the bleak blinking inside flickers blank
Wouldn’t it feel so rejuvenating to take a break
but these achievements would drag on too long
Would it be so out of line to
give in to the screaming pop within my chest, fire?
I’ve learned how to spark, cultivate a fire—
banish fear of the flame, let it breathe
become one with the crackling heat when you’re tending to
this willful creature, let your mind go a little bit blank
as orange bursts rejoice fiercely against shimmering shadow sky, longing
to lick, kiss, snap higher, to feed flickering cracks sticks break
If you want to do half decent you don’t take that break,
for minute detail, scrutinized under my own fire
blinking to stay awake, I long
for exemptions that I will never take, a breath
They, I, burn, turn, we learn concern for the blank,
bitter images, swimming into color before my eyes, too
much to take. as we unwillingly enter into
these dystopian displays of inhumanity, how long before we break?
we blink, wishing in vain the world could reset blank
who’s going to set the unjust weapons of the power abusers on fire
inhale the smoke of acerbic victory as we watch them burn, we breathe
a breath of sparkle dripping spring sprinkle, of fair, free life awaited so long
as I type and scroll, type and scroll, why it is so wrong to long
for finite answers to the inconceivable conundrums of the present, to
aspire to crack the paradoxes of the future, to find time alone to simply breathe,
I condemn the incessant urge to retreat into that bubble before I break, before it breaks
my physicality incapable of turning from the potency of tantalizing fire
personal, societal, stuck steadily spiraling within anxious, frantic, apathetic blank
please, can I go blank
to the world, if I nod or stare or talk or laugh too long
suddenly I can’t focus amidst the brain fire
what’s new, the unfailing outskirt of four, or three, or two
without or with a listening ear will I break?
maybe it’s for the best my feelings can’t breathe
Has it been too long now to
step through invisible fire and calmly, passionately break?
it can be okay, even if it’s a little blank, just breathe.
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