Black Smoke

Is it her fault that the moth destroyed itself in her flame?

Is it her burden, her guilt to bare?

When all she wanted was to ease the dark. To befriend it.

To shine. A beacon.

Instead, she begins to drown.

He's like a dark cloud in her hands.

Heavy wisps so soft and inviting in the beginning, now so cold. Thorn-like.

Her fingers bend, the cloud crumbling into soot.

And he is gone.

Like black smoke, submerging into the night.

She breathes him in, one last-ditch effort to keep him.

Instead he consumes her, choking her from within.

"I can't breathe!" she cries, but he's nestled in her lungs now, uncaring of anything but his warmth from her furnace heart.

A fire stoked only as often as to feed his needs. Meet his comfort.

She runs.

The distance fanning life back into her, sparking her embers.

Painfully, the blaze becomes strong again, its light once again steady, brighter now against the starless night.

Then flies another moth.