wildfire

i am a fissured pawn

but have no control

as every shrewd square becomes occupied

by an opposing fate or fraud.

each path leads to a cracked rear view

content with lovely nothingness.

there is nothing left for me here,

even when all masks have been lowered.

and where would resolve lie?

a symphony will digress only if commanded to do so.

yet it takes no composer to ensnare me on a whim,

to crescendo the scattered notes,

to put an end to it all with a double line

and not another glance back.

hard prayers hold no future for soft sin,

but at such times as these

at least a memorial is expected.

my head is barely above water,

there's no telling what's below.

i hold on to the one thing

keeping me from drowning,

my buoy in troubled waters,

but sometimes even that

doesn't seem like enough.

no more tears here, the sign says.

so i move over five inches and cry there instead.

i'm running fast as wildfire through my own mind games

but it doesn't matter.

no one cares enough to chase me.

still it seems the walls of morality

are closing in, but strategizing,

and i'm going back to prison.

i'd rather run from the law

than abandon my dreams.

run like wildfire.

06.2005