When a fire cripples
and comes crashing down,
the burning fireflies
that jump up
                                     and out
are the remnants of
the heat that
burns so intensely at
the center of the blaze.
As they
scatter
frantically
in every direction,
they are filled with joy
to be liberated
from their
benevolent captor
only to regret their
emancipation
moments later as
they dissolve into nothing
in the cold of the night.
Embers littered
across the sand like
stars lying against
the canvas of a
dark winter’s eve
resemble the same pattern
that you left me in;
Free
         but lost.