FISTFLIGHT

a woman wails and people clap 

Some are blessed,
they live it backwards.
First the bitter and the gall
then the victory.
A breath of clean air after a mining shaft.

Some don't try,
can't say much about those because
they don't do much to be said about.

Some strike a deal with the dealer himself,
they offer up their cards
so others can play them right.
They promise misery for themselves
in exchange for someone else's happiness.

I strike deals all the time,
sometimes I think I just self-prophesize my way through life.
What have I done to deserve peace,
and so I will the nightmares into my dreams.
What have I done to deserve goodness,
and so I seek out the worst of people
and lay with them so two can become one.
(Less worst of people in the world!)
What have I done to deserve love,
and so I emulate hate.
What have I done to deserve life,
and so when I finally go underwater,
I don't hold my breath.

I give it up to the dealer.
My tomorrow for your next week, month, year and forever.

listen I can hear a burning,
today I dreamt of a house on fire.
But while everyone rushed out to cool air,
I heard a child's cry and I ran back into flames.
I picked her up from the floor,
(women dream of familiar females 13% more than men do, and I've heard that child's call for help from my very mouth a thousand nights over),
swaddled her and jumped out a window.
As I fell she escaped my grasp,
not outwards but inwards,
and I landed in my own arms.
Heroic.
Safe.
and then,
Awake.

look I can see a rising,
of phoenix from ash.
realisation from murk.
There is a fresh steel galvanised,
from years in the forge
to be a pillar for bridges between those less loved
and what they deserve.
Wooden ones burn best because the rot in them laps up conflagration
out of misguided desperation.
fire isn't always a friend, take it from Prometheus.

feel,
i have wellfire in my veins.
and you,
you are not worth even my sparks.

in Social Pyschology I learnt that there were Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse,
analogised as the components that make a relationship fail.
Stonewalling, Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt.

Stonewalling : when you stopped climbing to reach me.
Criticism : when I stopped seeing what you could be.
Defensiveness : when they started making sense.
Contempt : when we failed us.

the world doesn't end with a bang, the way some say it started.
it ends with too much space, and too little time.
it ends when silence begins, and where the plane wheels left the ground.