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Fire
A match gives birth,
Ignites with a wavering, flickering uncertainty.
A crawling yellow parasite
Finds its feet,
Learning to walk
On a wooden tightrope.
Slowly feeding on its lifeline,
Transforming it into something
Withered and frail.
Its virgin meal has only made it hungrier;
Before it loses its balance
It finds a newspaper roll.
And so begins the second course.
The copy is delicious.
It rips through photos, print, words
Like a reckless child would an open refrigerator,
Defecating black ash and soot and dust.
And yet still its hunger grows -
The more it devours
The more it craves...
Match tempts Newspaper,
Newspaper tempts Log,
Log tempts Tree,
Tree tempts Forest.
The baby parasite expands and explodes with each feed;
It billows into a self-perpetuated
Blazing inferno.
An obese, invincible entity
Consuming everything in its path
And leaving nothing but cinder in its wake.
It dances its greedy dance,
Ravenous for further destruction.
Great towering perennials crash to the earth
Strangled in yellow and orange and red.
But at the edge of the forest
The fridge is bare.
The flame feels suffocated,
And cries for pity.
Turning on itself;
It begins to devour the very energy that has fuelled it.
Eating away at its core,
It crackles and moans and collapses
Until there is nothing but
Silence.
| Posted by Matt at 16:21 /writing # |