Ice Water — NaPoWriMo Day #23 — a poem about putting out the wildfires of the heart

The doctor put her hands on me
and she told me I was on fire.
I wondered how I could burn
so long without being consumed.

She wanted to pour ice water
through my glowing embers,
but there are campfires
and then there are lava flows,
and I knew mine was the latter.

I started out this life sweet and safe,
ocean waves lapping at the shore,
cool and quiet and keep-to-myself.
But love broke me and transformed me
into a resentful, bitter wildfire of a thing
until I burned through the trees I'd planted
and the homes I'd built—
until nothing was left but the anger itself.

She tells me the morning will be better.
That I'll have healed some
and the heat will subside.
But my brain and body and soul
are so invested in this burned out shell
that relief doesn't feel like relief.
I cannot trust my own perceptions,
can't tell what's healthy or good for me.

But I'll drink the ice water
and take the medicine she's giving me.
I'll sit with the burn until it fades out of me.
There must be a way to survive without hurting—
some way to glow without burning.

Photo by: Cata