Signaling smoke
In the summer sky,
You could've seen the signs
Miles away.
My parents' marriage
Went up in flames.
I wasn't afraid of fire
When I was a child.
I was brought up
Under the black locust trees,
With dirt paths
Beat with bare feet
Into the woods.
And the smell of smoke
Was normal on my clothes,
I could start a fire when I was so young,
I don't even remember my age.
I wasn't afraid of fire.
So when it
Licked
The bottoms of my feet
As I sat on the wooden bridge
Built across the battle trench
Between my parents
I wasn't worried,
Not really.
When it collapsed
Every child ran to what looked like
The safer side,
Which we each had different
Opinions of.
I walked out
With white ash
On my eyelashes
Like delicate, fluttering snowflakes.
My nose burned, and it sometimes
Hurt to breathe.
My body was covered in soot,
It blended my skin into
The night,
And I felt safer there.
I am building a bridge now.
It's a work in progress,
It will be years before it's done,
But we're building with steel
Not wood.
And I'm slowly
Washing my body
Of the black powdered residue,
And breathing out the smoke.
The only problem is,
First I have to cross the bridge
I lived on
As a child.
See the brittle places
Where it caught flames,
And repaire the flaws left by it
In my head
So that our bridge binding
Him and me won't ignite.
I was never afraid of fire.
But I'm afraid of what it does.
Try walking on a charcoal bridge,
A burnt up marriage,
Divorce,
Still smoking.
Tell me
That isn't terrifying...
Try.
It's hard to know
Where to put your feet
So you don't fall.
And I'm not past that bridge yet,
So sometimes
I forget
That I'm not her,
And he's not him.
I have parts of her face,
I have features that are his.
I have some of their problems.
But I'm crossing that bridge
After they burned it.