the ink from a burnt husk

“It can’t end like this,”

mused the faded pine floorboards,

lined with ink scratches from overzealous doodles,

dented with pockmarks of domestic turmoil

from each feigned detente unheeded. 

Seen as “unsightly” 

all those years ago, 

claimed by no one,

now to suffocate beneath 

omnipresent carpet fibers, 

masking memories yet manifest. 

“It can’t end like this,” 

mused Marcus, 

lined with scratches from unsolicited thoughts,

dented with pockmarks of unintended consequences, 

from each feigned attempt to clear his mother’s debts. 

Despair sets in easily when necessities of life 

hinge upon the decisions of nameless folks, 

as you are to them. 

Such bureaucracy, with such control 

of water faucets, of breathing humans

becomes

a life sentence for you, an inconvenience for them. 

Seven years without running water in the pipes, 

the importance of which 

boiled down to an hour,

a sordid moment 

condensed 

to fit within

an overpriced, under-regulated 

bottle of water.  

The carpet caught first.

Flames, engulfing that sacred space,

which housed quantifiable centuries of life.

Slow, creeping, 

building up strength to leap upon drapes 

and fraying, formerly 

elegant rooster wallpaper in the kitchen. 

Overpriced water does little to satiate the appetite of 

a pyre without purpose, nor the tax collectors that aid them. 

Instead, those enamored in nostalgia, 

held in a state

of horror,   

a house, a home

of memories marked and marred,

inked in joy and pain.

It is hard to decipher 

the ink 

from a burnt husk 

anymore.

Michael Carney