He peeled away time, like dead skin on fingertips
An irritant needing of disposal like all wasted things
Each layer increasingly painful to touch, but demanding an attention too strong to protest
Not knowing what exactly lies at the end, but tightly grasping the edges of his mind’s ferry as it lurched deeper in
Scraping into the recesses of inferno, past showy flames
Stopping only at the bottom, hitting solid ground, still and cold
A modest ghost land, non-boasting
Completely justified by its own barrenness
Indisputably, the first instance
There he laid himself to rest a while
Coddled in the dirt
A sense of security reminiscent of the womb where it started, back to the beginning
And while lying there, seeking comfort through this fever chill of a journey, looking up he saw it
What it must have been all along
A childhood memory, living only in the mind, but living all the same
A defining moment
Something simple, whose significance couldn’t be challenged, but whose existence was something uncertain
A mystery only partially figured out
But enough to know when to stop
Just a reverie, he reassured himself
And with that piled on each layer again and again until he reached the surface once more
Back to a familiar setting, cool and breathable
Maybe suggestive of a lower level
But probably not.

The fire in my soul
has started to die.

It shrinks down
the trellis of my ribs
like sun-burned flower petals;

wanes itself
to but a simmer

until it is
blue in the flames

Fire needs oxygen
to burn

but

My lungs thin
into icicles

frost congeals
around my chapped
lips

veins freeze over

(and so does this inferno)

~
⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to suicide and self-harm⚠️
~

I am the prodigal daughter
of Hestia,
Goddess of the hearth.

But this time,
I will not be returning
home.

Don't you get it?

I've burned it down
already.

Perhaps there shall exist no
redemption
for my incendiarism.

Perhaps there is no saving
a pyromaniac

from

her pyromantic sins

from getting drunk
off molotov cocktails

to baptizing her
melancholic fingers
in candle wax

to thrusting her head
in the oven,
where carbon monoxide
steals away her remaining
strands of breath.

Tell me is it still arson
if it is yourself you are
setting on fire?--

I wear lighter fluid
atop my collar bone
like it is fragrance

rouge my lips
with gunpowder,
every word an angry bullet
ricocheting off my teeth
and back down my throat.

I am circus act of a girl,
swallowing my own fire
just to survive

Ironic, isn't it?

Because for me,
survival entails
burning myself alive.

Soon,
I will have no teeth left
to bite these bullets:

This sadness.

This anger

rises from the
chasms of my soul
like bile.

Strange--

I always thought
myself to be the
epitome
of darkness.

Perhaps I simply
lured
the darkness towards me
like an eclipse of moths--

and you know
what everyone says about
moths & flames,
don't you?

It's funny now
that I think about it:

how the stars also
inhabit darkness,

how when I wish upon them,
I am really only wishing on
fire.

And where there is fire,
destruction is sure to
follow.

It is no wonder
all of my dreams--

those of

love.

magic.

verse.

have shuddered to
ash.

I make snow angels
in these ashes,
stretching my tongue out,
the remnants of
desire
scorching my tastebuds.

Here I lie,
like an extinguished
cigarette,
my use fulfilled and discarded.

But the stars
aren't too fond of
nicotine

even though
the very atoms
that comprise my essence
contain the stuff of galaxies.

But, oh , how these galaxies have
evaded
my brooding grasp.

When my fire
begins to dwindle,
I do whatever it takes
to re-ignite what has been
lost--

lap at the iridescent
gasoline puddles
that wade along
lonely
street corners;

sear campfire stories
across my palm lines
(I try to read
my future,
but the smoke
hangs too heavy);

strike matches across
my petrified wrists

just to feel something.

After all,
what am I without
my hellfire--

they could not
save me from it;

they could not
save me
from burning.

But perhaps the
true peril
was never in burning,
but in

burning out.

Trial i: Crimson


By: The Mad Poetess


Purpose:

I shall birth
a new colour.

Sprung from the womb
of passion & rage--

cacophonous.

The name of the labour:
The Crimsoning

after the spawn:

Crimson.

Hypothesis:

from the quill
baptized in crimson ink

to the torn parchment

poetry shall hail down

like a meteor shower.

Materials:

- Sewing needle
- Blood
- Berries harvested from the Belladonna plant (devil's cherry)
- Teardrops
- Artist's palette
- Inkwell
- Bunsen burner
- Quill pen
- Parchment


Procedure:

1. With the needle, ***** finger; remove needle at the first dewdrop of blood
2.  Crush and mix devil's cherries with teardrops upon artist's palette
3. Add dewdrop and rest of concoction on to palette and mix using whatever is convenient (fingers, paint brush, hair, etc)
4. Transfer Crimson to inkwell
5. Place in well above bunsen burner
6. Burn for 40 days and 40 nights until Crimson is matured
7. Dip quill into ink
5. Press quill to parchment
6. Write poetry


Observations:

The parchment kindles
beneath the ink

pages curl up
at the corners
like Medusa’s hissing serpents

every gawking
letter
a petrification of
what could have been

every lowercase t
crucified

every serif
a burning branch.

Is this the context
of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

To write poems about forest fires
and then

burn?

~

My poems and I:

on the cusp of extinction.

I throw my head back
at a ghastly angle

like the ancient
Ornithomimus.