A simple game

The child climbs the trees, dauntless until she falls, like a bird with deformed wings.

She touches the kettle despite the steam coming out, because she wants to cook like her mom, but scalds herself raw.

She lights the matches even though she has been told the curtains catch fire easily. She wants to light a fire in the fireplace, just like her daddy does.

And now watching the blackened snow flakes drift slowly down on the still city of ash, I'm alone in reality.

The smoke is long gone, The building's metal carcasses Hold nothing up. I'm the child who set the city on fire and only now do I realise

I was just a kid playing a grown ups' game.