Just Words

Stones and Flames:
Set this house on fire,
watch the curtains be devoured.
Waves of carefully sewn plaid cotton,
reduced to dark gray ashes
strewn on what's left of the floor.
The carefully painted brush strokes,
of lemon yellow,
melt and drip off the siding in the heat.
Orange, ravenous flames lick at the front steps.
I remember building those steps with you;
so many sore thumbs and bruised egos
are woven with the wood.
The beads of sweat I shed with you,
laughing,
as we constructed the entrance to our new home.
Together.
I almost smile,
to see those steps consumed by flames,
and collapsed into a pile of ash,
to be whisked away with the next slight breeze.
As the walls slowly break down
and fly away to join what never should have existed.
The quaint hand-made chimney,
built of stones from the river-bed,
the one you said would make it perfect.
I smile as the last remnant of you is gone.
You know that chimney?
It fell down today;
'cause I burnt the house underneath it.
That house,
that is no longer a home.