We have grown far too familiar with skyscrapers and not familiar enough with the sensation of being on the ground.
We run from the bases of burning buildings
by climbing up higher, in hopes

that the flames will fade the farther we get from them. That is not how fire works.

There are things we cannot outrun—
boys with broken hearts have either bridges or bullets.
And one day when we are all brushed up against each other
at the tops of burning buildings—moving to the sounds of nails on chalkboards and mourning the lessons we never listened to—
I hope the flame comes slow and red-hot;
I hope it curls up around my feet and warms up next to my face;
I hope when we have nowhere higher to run, it laughs.

Perhaps it does not matter so much that
I do not want to be alive, because it seems as though
the entire world does not want that either.
Sometimes, just for fun, I put metaphors into a loaded gun
and balance it between my eyes.
I don’t have to pull the trigger to know what it feels like to get shot. So no matter where the bullets come from,
I promise I will be anticipating their arrival, and I
will think of everything I will never have as it rains.