Gasoline Lines

I'm some old vicious steeple

you forgot to condemn. These cedar rafters are bone-dry and coated

in dust, and the ghosts still light devotional candles

beneath. I'm whispering light me more. I'm waiting to go up. I was a witch

before the people learned to play with their gallows and matches.

Now they're coming and the old books don't say

how to still a mob. I coated myself in gasoline as a child

and they told me just you wait,

wait until you go up, you self-damning prophecy, but I still believed in angels

back then. Now I know they're stone faces that don't cry,

that the rain only comes when the clouds grow too heavy,

that I hold only one element in my hands. That these dark skies

are godless.

I was afraid once that I did not burn brightly enough.

I did not read up on the dangers

of burning too quickly.