words

burn a mutherfucker down,
burn to stay alive,
burn complete,
burn alive
and every breath i breathe is borrowed,
an accrual of bad debt
that i will not return
until it is forced from my lungs
in a harrowed gasp,
a struck chord,
a vibrating string
that will disappear
when it ceases to move.

it is only this,
a quiet life near water and wilderness
where wild things creep from the night
and sleep in your narrow dreams,
the shout of restless doom
and i must keep moving,
keep breathing and keep burning
day on day like war
and there is no end in sight
so in the space between
i will blur these days together
and draw sound and shape
from whatever i remember.

-S.C. Martinez