I believe in altar.

The opposite of destruction
isn’t creation; it is
stability, longevity,
ground.
It is mired in the Earth.
It is steadfast.
It is wings
with purpose.
I had insisted on burning every
bridge, every baby,
every body that came from a fit
of fervent execution.

Play Oya,
the moon dared.
I hoisted myself on the stake and
displayed my plotted empire in pieces
dancing to the flicker of my
ardent fire parade.
Previously, my life had
been of lingering malignance,
but it had no fangs to suck
the bleak from my veins.
I turned black
and sidelong
with every corner.
Now, I am
moving in giant
fit of blaze:

I am the forest catching wind.
I am the scream of the first tree falling.
I am the silence of the spark’s eventual dim,
the mess in between;
the burst of orange, the hara kiri,
the gray cloud of obscurity
where nothing can breathe,
where nothing can leave without
serious damage.
I am the stampede that warns you.
Everything that tried to stay in the comfort of
my pine bosom;
gone,
lay slain at my feet.

And me,
incendiary and flying,
rising from the ash in a
crown of bone
and teeth.

“the stakes”