A Prayer For Your Calcination

When the tinder of your old life is sparking,

I pray it singes and curls for you like desiccated hay.

I pray you are not waiting on tendrils

steaming off of some punky log left out to winter.

I pray you feed it.

Feed it with the oil

that has composted in the secret soil

of your buried discontent.

Make kindling of those paper scripts, smudged

at all corners by your own thumbprints:

justifications of what you had but didn't want,

doubts over what you want and still don't have,

everything you said but didn't mean—

yes, even the lies you spoke to fortify

the prison of your safety.

The tinder of your old life is sparking,

God, feed it!

Feed it with those too-small shoes

you wore for a role that is no longer you,

every letter stamped by someone else's approval,

the thin pages of the moralistic fairy tales

you grew up reading,

until the ember bed is orange and licking

at all your should's, mustn't's, and can't's.

And if the fire is still hungry,

it could be that what you once loved,

what you may love still,

is wooden.

The tinder of your old life is sparking.

You might fall to your knees

before the home that is burning,

but darling, feed it.

Feed it with the sacrifices you would've made

again and again if given the chance,

with your poems and photographs,

the effigies you whittled with your nimble hands

for the idols whose words have hollowed.

Sit for a beat.

Sweat, and chew on your why's?,

but when you are full-up with questions

toss them in, too.

Let the flames grow questionably tall,

for the wind quiets its whistling.

Somewhere, rain clouds are gathering.

It's only weather.