I am a forest of many small fires.
Matches tossed carelessly
into tinder which waits fervently
for the touch of a sparking disarray,
I am all at once a smolder and senseless blazing flame
and the smoke which billows away from me reeks arrestingly of shame.
And so I am ashes,
purely enveloped the black sickening airs of ghastly passions,
insisted becomings and hasty stashes,
I am shame
and attempts to mask it
seem to disintegrate like the cajoles of yesterday.
I am a forest of many small fires which have melded into one,
as the blurring of myself with the long observed sum.
As dust dry bones to the carcasses of slain,
the creatures of innocence whose tried escapes but in vain,
I slough the suffering of a thousand drunkards on the undeserving lips,
of the meticulous sparrow’s sloppily incinerated nest.
I am dissolution to good and my flames stand to show,
of how easily destruction may pass for personal growth.