• She stares out the smudged window,
    making fingerprints on the mud that stained the glass,
    her breath mingling with the smoke
    of the flames that burned inside her.
    They coiled around her neck like a snake,
    and her throat burned with fire,
    those scathing words that bruised her arms and
    tainted her spirit.
    She reaches for a happy memory,
    She is standing on her tip-toes,
    but all she sees are blades.
    And guns.
    And shattered bottles, their contents
    bleeding all over the floor.
    The light at the end of the tunnel—
    it’s fading.
    Painted in dark red lettering are the words
    E M E R G E N C Y
    E X I T
    And she takes it, and escapes
    from the constant, dull throb of dissatisfaction with life
    from the distinctive searing burn from each word, each blow
    from the misery that had consumed her for so long.
    The firefighters arrived too late.
    The gravedigger arrived too early.
    She did not see the bronzed leaves of autumn,
    She saw dead trees.
    She did not smell the earthy aroma of rain,
    She smelled the salt of her tears.
    She did not hear the laughter of her best friend,
    She heard a man’s irritated yell.
    She did not taste the crisp within the apple,
    She tasted the metallic tang of blood.
    She did not feel hope.
    She felt the edge of a knife sever her from the material world.
    And sever her from us.