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Once Burnt

Writer: mknudtsonmknudtson

a candle burning fades low and grey. it

has lost its violence, its passions, its

life. wax tears sluice down the 

remainder of its body, raising rigid 

scars from surface wounds, 

shivering till it spills over. a feeling

unlike a feeling rises with smoke

and chokes on itself, its formless fumes. 

the candle does not know itself as it did 

before. it raises a cry, more wildfire 

than lilting flame, just to hear an echo

in the forgotten room. one puff and I'll 

collapse, the voice screams, dark and 

cooling. one puff and I'll breathe 

my last, it insists to the hardening gloom.

so it goes, into the ancient silence.

 
 
 

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