Burn
By
    Image by Elissa Gray / North by Northwestern.

    The best blaze brightest because they do not beware the burn.

    Live without restraint, untamed,

    carry a flame in your gut and a flint on your tongue

    flood your lungs and exhale smoke, or you

    will choke on regrets that coat your throat.

    Let your teeth strike sparks in protest and anger,

    with the danger of being consumed to guide you.


    Burn bridges to brightly light the way.

    Cobain had the brains to be afraid to fade

    before he blew them

    out – out – like a candle

    too bright to handle life

    and strife and daughter and wife.


    Live fast and free and wild as fire,

    desire, a pyre to light in your soul

    without which you wouldn't withstand the cold.

    Leave your mark like a burning wound

    to prove you lived your life as you.

    Not someone who sat in silence,

    taste the acidic sting of defiance,

    violent scars that mar and char

    like a cigar to an innocent arm.


    Too long I've lived listening to my fears,

    I'd rather heat that sears and scars

    than freezing fright. Paralyzed,

    I'd despise a world that ends in ice.

    Even Frost favors fire

    so from this day, as will I.


    Because the heat that hurts and burns and kills,

    fulfills and warms like homely hearth

    our planet Earth. So as you go,

    always let your glow be known.

    A home for those who cannot see,

    who need a beacon in the night.

    Burn like campfire, bring others to your light.

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