One by one the threads of fire are plucked out just like they promised they would do to you, at age 15.
What do you do when you feel like a foreigner in your city, state, country, world? When your intentions are good but nothing makes sense. The compass is broken, the clock is off, glasses don’t give you better vision, everyone around you speaks in a tongue that you do not understand. The world works guided by a god that you have never met.
You toss the pearls of your soul, like seeds meant to bloom, into piles of gravel. They blend in, you cannot see them, nobody can, you cannot get them back so you begin
Clinging to the remaining string of precious stones as they fall. One by one.
Like the threads of fire dropped. one by one. into a dark never ending sea, watching them be extinguished.
There wasn’t ever a chance, you think as you dig through the stones of gravel searching for pearls.
There wasn’t ever a chance, you scream as one by one the flames die.
There was not ever a chance, you whisper.
The crowd draws to watch as what’s beautiful is destroyed, swallowed.
Some look concerned, some laugh, some turn to talk to their neighbor, but the majority have empty eyes and blank expressions, they’ve seen it too many times, it’s symbolic of nothing.
Clocks tick
And tock
Clocks tick
And clocks tock
The clocks drown out the sounds of the birds, the rain, the waves crashing, the laughter of children(the only time you ever feel at home is with children, you are a child you feel)
The sound of your tears falling indistinguishable.
The crowd scatters slowly, each person becomes a shadow and then a speck and then nothing at all.
You turn to walk away empty handed, Bare,
the lights of the city that gave you life, are turned off, at once.
Years pass and you tell people how you once had a head full of flames, eyes that cried like the rain, an abundance of pearls that you wore proudly on your chest, they were your soul, your heart. How you carried with you the joy of newness and the hope.
They say , of course you didn’t. Prove it.