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Burning Pages:

By Kurtis Pryde:

By Kurtis PrydePublished 2 years ago 3 min read
1

Burning Pages:

I have a recurring dream where burning pages fall from the sky. My writing, my life’s work. My love and hope. So many scorching pages flutter down and heat the air, I can’t breathe. I try to salvage what I can, but the ashes burn and blister my skin. The sky is dark, a city flickers in the distance. Its buildings glow, licked by tall flames, I hear it popping and snapping. A creek beside me reflects the red and orange, it sizzles when the embers land. I can’t see where I’m going but for a moment the smoke clears and I’m on a wide road, there’s no cars no shelter. The heat slows me. My feet feel heavy, and my head hangs low. I look up, I see her, the subject of my pages. The hurt on my skin Is nothing now. I call to her but she can’t hear me. The wind picks up and howls and whips fire into spirals that approach like small storms. She’s unburnt for now but scared. Her eyes glimmer with fear and hope, somehow. I step toward her, but she moves back, not intentionally, she glides. Every step I take the distance remains the same. I panic and begin to run. Pain shoots through my legs like they’ve snapped and shattered, I run still. Even at high speed I just can’t close the distance.

I wake. I feel three feet deep in my sheets, I kick and punch to uncover myself but they smother me with intent. My legs are cramped and I reach out, nothing. She stirs in her sleep too, one hundred miles away, I know this because she tells me, or I hear it at least, in the same melancholy morose that haunts me in the AM. Two halves of one heart stirring under the same moon and I can’t close the distance. Separated by situation and miles and all I can do is write. Like my pages my soul floats down and burns, then it sinks a little lower still, and burns again. If a written word could bring me closer to her, I’d have circled the Earth a thousand times in her name. Words can’t close the distance. Another day passes and as I settle down, I wonder how many pages will burn tonight under the blue moon? Is it as stone-cold as its face appears? Does it feel us, or even see us? Will it weep when we stir? Will it wish it could close the distance? It too must feel lonely some nights, if it understands me, the feeling is mutual. Under its pale light, I close my eyes and prepare to stand in flames, I don’t trust it to wake me when the sky begins to burn.

I twirl in my sheets for many nights like a downed pilot in twisted and torn metal. I eventually get the chance to close the distance. I’m elated, ten feet tall, ten toes to the ground and ten men couldn’t stop me. My dreams clear, no falling sky no burning pages, and the moon seems to perk up, it hangs a little higher in a sky less black than yesterday. Time does what time does, before long I’m back and alone. I feel the cold in my bones like the word goodbye cost me some marrow. Morose, melancholy, hello both. The moon draws in again, my head hits the pillow and I drift. I walk the road, I see the city, the sky falls, I can’t breathe. The pages burn. I can’t close the distance.

humanity
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About the Creator

Kurtis Pryde

I like to explore the fundamental human struggle and what it means to us, my novel Huxley is complete and I'm currently seeking representation.

Reader insights

Nice work

Very well written. Keep up the good work!

Top insights

  1. Heartfelt and relatable

    The story invoked strong personal emotions

  2. On-point and relevant

    Writing reflected the title & theme

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