I let the flames devour the past today

whilst keeping each memory intact for future use.

I let an explosion of tight yellows and blues spread

and search for more fuel, more wasted ways to say

that the muse of words have been completely abused

and now they lay fried and buried, the words are dead.

I once hung upon them and revered them to show growth,

the patient delivery of a lead-lined pencil, the Time between Time

and the slow mark of a pact, the most solemn of oaths;

that to let anyone read you, even me, would be a crime.

I read a passage today, I had not seen in a while

and I burn with rage at the sentence to pass

from such a young age and kept in bound black file,

I pronounce death upon those words with fire and gas.

Ian D. Hall 2015