In heat.

It’s the heat that kills.

When I lie in bed and it seeps through me pooling in that inferno,

I forget what the flames eat first, and what evil lurks beneath,

Or within, but I hold my breath until it stills.

I wait and linger and plead, but the darkness wants everything to do with me.

It fills me until the cracks smooth over and I kick at covers.

When I was smaller, you would tell me to leap from the sheets,

Grab everything I could hold onto; now my hands work against me and I no longer use yours.

For a while I held on, cramming the space around me and then it turned to great waves,

No longer driftwood on the strange tides, but jetsam trashing my shores.

I loathed these walls and the ice that crept around me,

Teetering along edges and finding me weak.

When I can no longer reason, it is your name I speak,

Then the flames swell and flicker and part.

I descend further and stop to see your face from below

And remember how it felt long ago to sit by your side and burn

When I used to wait for sparks to take flame.

It is the embrace of time I only know so dear,

Yet I hope to see you come back around here.

by Hannah