I am a car crash
Resounding
Cranked metal twisting beyond recognition and freshly destroyed
I am not rusted
The fury of my hands colliding
Pleading
Praying
Asking why asking how asking anything at all because any answer would be better than this
Alone
And yet I’m not
It’s not about me
My face distorted in shock
In guilt
And yet it must be hidden: a secret shame of undiluted fear for others
Not myself
This is not about me
It’s about children needing me to hold it together
It’s my love on a fiery mountainside as the flame wave comes like a locomotive screeching when it sees the firefighters
Unblinking
Their terror hidden in back pockets
Secretive
These are the foothills of my young life
Where my loves go to play
Blackened
Skeleton trees
Ash strewn in the air catching in throats
Catching catching gleaning peaking short of where my house lies below
The rocks
Scorched but incapable of conducting
It is a wasted effort
Directed redirected reaching arching
Something more
Nothing
And I’m lucky
Everything that matters still is
The trauma has passed in the wind wisps faded
Embers blown
Eyes streaming still and for what
Nightmares shall pass
Hunger shall return
And this night is but a drop in a sea of restless nights in Colorado summer
For certainly we are lucky happy family untouched
Unburned
Unbroken
Surpassing glory of the impact
It is through
Through to color memories of insufficiencies and bittersweet consolation prizes
Expected
Unexpected
Certain and savor the notion that we are lucky happy
Colliding
No longer
