Drag me home. My memory doesn’t sing for you anymore, does it? I can tell through your absent stare. Everyone around me screams and laughs and carry’s on, but I sit so, very still. Pull me up from the carpet. Remind me of everything that comes with loss. Try to cut my ties from the emptiness, and it’ll suck me back in every time. It took a winter morning in January to catch fire. I exhaled smoke like air and turned the town to ash. I walked on embers. I lit up every piece of the scene until it begged me to stop. It took a part of me with it, you know. I severed a piece of myself that day too because loss feels infinite, even though it happens quick. Loss feels permanent, because it is. Loss feels like smoke stinging your eyes- and you swear it’s not tears. I swear it’s not tears. I swear it not tears. It’s just leftover ash that I spilled from my pores. Bury the rest to sleep. Tell the old part of me to take care. Be still. Be remembered. Be one with the spark that dimmed loudly. It all comes to a halt and I don’t think anyone will ever remember it the way that I do. So when I’m throwing fists. Slamming palms on concrete. Shedding tears filled with gasoline and breathing fire. Swearing that I’ll never feel okay again. Separating my mind from my body with poison- please drag me home. Tell me lies: say it’s okay. It never happened. It’s all a dream. All is well. Rest til mourning wakes. -AMT ©️