arson and the family tree

I plant an apple seed one summer,

out back where you lived,

once,

the empty house with rusted gates,

that haunts the back of your mind today,

and say

When this seed is a full grown tree,

when the branches unfurl

and the leaves grow green,

when I’m older and strong enough

to break off a branch and fashion

it into a bow

to fight off those who’d hurt us,

when the shade protects you

from the blind sun’s glare -

then I'll break off branches

one by one,

harvest the fruit

in twisted theophagy,

rake the leaves into

the empty rooms inside,

cover the entire place

in torn books and torn branches -

and we’ll watch as the past

warms our cold threadbare fingers

and flies off in white ash

and the smell of cinderwood smoke.

See?

We’ll burn the paper towns

where we forget that we were born,

and the paper hearts

that tore when we trod

on their tried-and-true tradition,

we’ll watch, safe, from the mountains

as our bodies turn to stone,

looking over our shoulders

at the wreckage we’ve caused -

tell me,

Would you do all this for me?

I look over my shoulder,

and for a second

we’re the arsonist angels of old,

the oneiric and ineffable,

who burned cities like anthills

and sunk the Old World

until the sun was drowned -

We’re screwed-up, scared of becoming

the stories we grew up scared of, fearing:

but can we play another game,

and play the angels all the same?