My first thought for this poem was to stop, drop, and roll off of the stage.
But obviously I can't do that and the show must go on so, I actually wrote something.


Firesides and fireflies are related to fireside poets that rhymed and fireflies that float with flashes of luminescent organs.
I've never seen a firefly.


Firestorms and firethorns could decorate the sky and a forest if they wanted to. Flames licking leaves and the white, thorny evergreens.


I don't like the colors white, yellow, or orange really, but I promise I'm not a pyromaniac.
An intense inferno just starts a wildfire in my eyes.


Arsonists love a good show except I love the incendiary.
The rush from the wreckage in your hands that I have left you with.
Watching you handle it, mistreating it could set it off again like an aftershock.
An aftershock from the earthquake of altercations dwindling down to wakes.
Wakes you drown in,
Wakes you dream in but never wake up from.
Except, you’re drowning in flames.


I think about helping you, teaching you how to use a fire blanket to smother the fervency. A fire extinguisher to suffocate the oxygen.
But I'd rather watch you squirm beneath my gaze and beg for help.
Tell me you need me.
Tell me you're dying without me.
Tell me that there is only me.
That there is not a single tragedy that could replace me.


I want to help you, I do.
But by now I've burned you to embers and cinders from all of my red, raw eyes rubbed dry.
With my,
Little white lies,
With my,
Subtle goodbyes,
And my,
softened fists searing your cheeks every time I caress them with my fire.