A woman lights herself on fire again and again. Each time she thinks she can control the fire, or at least delay the progress of its flames. The little flames that singe the surface of her tiny blonde hairs and race up her arms and legs. When the heat rises, she takes a sip of ice water. Then a glass, a quart, a gallon. She breathes in to the count of ten and exhales slowly to the count of twenty. Next she counts to fifty. Then one hundred. She tries to blow out the flames one by one. Nights she runs into the streets like a human torch, crying out when she can not sleep. Days she visits therapists who prescribe pills. Pills and more pills. She collects them until she has hundreds, then thousands. Then she swallows them all. Oh yes, she takes them all at once. Nothing works. Her desperation fans the fire. Her desperation becomes the fire. Sometimes she even talks to the flames. Go away! Now! The fire never listens. It can’t. The fire keeps blazing inside her lips, guts, and groin. The fire knows what every fire knows. It must do only what she commands. It knows that Go away means, Come. Now! More! It has no choice but to fry her again and again.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Robert Burns: Wilt Thou Be My Dearie?:
- Face To Face by Rabindranath Tagore
- Eveleen’s Bower by Thomas Moore
- Crowdie ever mair (Song) by Robert Burns
- Вероника Тушнова – Ты любил, и я тебя любила
- The Leäne by William Barnes
- Robert Burns: Halloween: The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own.-R.B.
- cocoon_for_a_skeleton.html
- Михаил Лермонтов – Забудь опять свои надежды
- Translations Dante Inferno Canto Xxvi
- About Wedding Dress
- Polly’s Tree by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Маяковский – Октябрь 1917–1926
- Makin’ It Natural by Shel Silverstein
- Important thing’s in life by Martin Smith
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
