Enkindled

There is a fire
Clean burning in the fuel of myself, the songs of scorching nerves and sizzling skin tantalizing
Siren-like the smoke stirs, embracing
The flavors intoxicating as I inhale the earthy tang and musk of living breathing reality
The cool breezes of clarity and salt sea blood of life and birth and death
The skin peels back from the intensity of the heart 
Raw to the world and exposing the sharp edges of broken places
Slashing new places for myself to fit as bits of me slough away 
And I must tuck them here and there for safe keeping
There is no keeping and no safe but it flows, inspired
The sussuration of inner tides and whispered secrets
Cracking, peels away, leaving truth somehow to tumble forth,
Clumsily and awkward in its nakedness
Spent by the effort to survive before even being born
Still it stands, exposed and exposing
Left with nothing else to be but itself