"Burning Ice"
Grief and guilt can simmer and burn like ice;
Did you know, against papered skin, whiskey-blood can burn like ice?
Alcohol smolders much more than throats
Veins, blood vessels, and arteries turn to ash as they burn like ice.
Grief can be as much of an organ as the liver,
And it oozes through bone marrow until the skeleton burns like ice.
The guilt is worse; it makes the intestines curl,
Laces ribs with frost, and clenches the stomach as its acid burns like ice.
Two years past, and I can still hear him cry out
As the motor oil flames flicker in my mind's eye: "It burns like ice!"
Now he is a headstone and I am a ghost;
Though I inhale and exhale, the breath against my lungs burns like ice.
Perhaps it couldn't have been my fault, or perhaps
I swallow fire simply to melt the grief that always burns like ice.
If I destroy myself, will he forgive me?
Or will the guilt continue to drown me alive, and forever burn like ice?
m.l.p.
YOU ARE READING
Meraki
Poesíameraki [may-rah-kee] (noun): when something is done with soul, creativity, or love; when you leave a piece of yourself in your work. No matter what I write, a part of me ends up among the words. A collection of poems.
