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by Poet on the Piano   Apr 8, 2018


i started a fire
at a nearby pavilion
in 2015 -
a detective questioned
me that summer.
i could have been
arrested,
but my history
showed a
sympathetic,
if not haunted
side of me.

i still remember
being asked
if i enjoyed starting
fires,
like i did it frequently,
a favorite hobby,
wanting to destroy and
watch flames take away
the oxygen.
i wasn't handcuffed
but i knew it could
have happened
in a flash.

file after file saved
on the recklessness
of being me.

i feel detached
from that person now,
a world apart from a
soul that drifted to chaos
because she had no other
outlet.

i no longer carry shame;
i have no room to rent
guilt in my bones,
they've ached long enough -
my mind has been a
raided tomb
for what feels like centuries.

-

(sitting in Panera right now,
sifting through old files on the laptop
my dad handed down to me,
finding things from 2014-2015
when my mental health was considerably
at its worst.)

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Latest Comments

  • 5 years ago

    by Ben Pickard

    Just scrolling through some of your older work, MA, and came across this one which both shocked and surprised me in equal measure. I think by the time I reached the end, my overwhelming feeling was sympathy and sorrow for you for having to suffer this kind of misery.
    I have to say, from a poetic point of view, this is brilliant:

    i no longer carry shame;
    i have no room to rent
    guilt in my bones,

    Take care.

    • 5 years ago

      by Poet on the Piano

      Thank you, Ben. I don't know what else to say either than it's super weird for me going back and reading, yet in a way, I'm glad I documented this and wrote what I was going through.... to know that I can and have grown. That's a big step for me to not carry shame (of any kind, no matter how it manifests itself).

      Thanks again, means a lot :)

    • 5 years ago

      by Ben Pickard

      I agree entirely that it was absolutely worth writing and reading again, too. If these processes are cathartic in any way, they are important. Glad it helped you, MA.

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