Words from a Dishonest Poet

Ashes. Ashes. We all Fall Down.

        There was bright white noise screaming all around her. The thoughts in her head were racing faster than the embers that fell to her feet. She could barely keep her eyes open anymore, they were watering so bad. There was burning in her dry eyes and smoke in her lungs. As well as bee stings where untamed flames licked at her exposed skin. Her head was spinning in circles trying to find a way out of this ash covered mess. Her worst fears were slowly dawning in the empty pit of fear that sat deep in her chest. A fear she refused to accept as reality. There had to be some way out. 

The dark smoke was thicker than the knot in her throat. The corrupted air was searing down her esophagus every time she tried to inhale, and trying to exhale the black poison only led to a paralyzing fit of coughing. The back of her shirt was soaked in liquid panic. With every bead of sweat that dripped past her brow, she could feel the moisture being stolen right from her lips. It was a terrible sensation.

           Soon she was too weak to stand. The smoke inhalation was suffocating. She was on the ground using her arms to brace herself up while simultaneously crawling for an exit. Time was slowing down as the vivid gold flames grew bigger, stronger, and more dangerous. Her next actions were a brief combination of gasping, choking, and using the back of her hand to keep the sweat from dripping into her eyes.

            The fire was becoming too much. The smoke was becoming too much. Her exhaustion was becoming too much. Her hands were slipping and her arms and shoulders were growing too tired to keep her up anymore. Through everything she was inhaling that night, oxygen wasn't one of them.

She let her head, the last part that hadn't already collapsed, fall to the ground. Her palms and the side of her face laid flat on the crumbling floor. As she laid there, somehow not fearing what she had before, she listened to the flames roar in her ears. She watched as the ashes fell around her lying body like February morning snowflakes. And she silently laid there as the fire took her into a warm embrace.