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The blinding blaze engulfs the crying house

The house screams and bends and darkens and crumbles under the weight of the unforgiving flame

I view it from a distance, in the cold wind, in the dark night, in the weed infested field

The magnificence of it all, the heat waves emerging from its corpse and the silent chill I feel lashing my flesh

The contrast of the night sky crowning its golden blaze

And the emptiness pulling my heart down, and down further until it dissolves in my stomach

But the house is not dying, it’s dead. A phantom on a useless plot of land

Reduced to a shadowbox of fading memories, of laughter and weeping and song

My bare feet pivot away from the pitiful sight, mercilessly shredding the crabgrass

I cannot look at that shack

I cannot gaze upon its shameful, ashen foundation

“It means nothing to me,” I tell myself

Not anymore