The incision—a hallway
The blood running—fire
The black curtain drawn
The sable cloud’s shadow cast over
A smell triggering hysteria
The news spread by sight and nose
The blaze reaching up from beneath
The quiet cacophony, the crumbling roof

The final seconds elongating
The wait for everything and the end
The screaming, the heat—high degree
The silence then becoming her
The girl packed into a corner
The promise ring of flame
The cross bared—heavy
Her courage blown away—just a dust flurry

Fate is blind.
Time is untraceable.
Reality is tainted; and—
Like the sky—it does not break.
Her face is treaded on
Like the dirt of the world;
Grey rivers run
And fall into the rocks.
It’s hard to watch
The slow burning
Of a home she had once found
To be cold as ice.
Now youth is her excuse
Not to die—
A plea for time
To freeze…

The suffocation, the stinging eyes
The reptilian tongues—orange and red—tasting her feet.
The screams choked out unheard
The pain in high degree
The promise ring suddenly a cloak
The world saturated in its demonic hue
The flesh blackened to ash and bone
The sin death commits by forfeiting haste