Your only child
You lay your only son on a pyre.
Blood dipped in sweat he calls out to you and claws at your sleeves
The very cloth on you is unmoving and unshaking.
He screams unrelentless tones but you are not there to see it.
You are elsewhere, you are where your wish is.
I strike at the fire like it will free me, but it surpasses me in both strength and experience.
When I find I have lost you, I find thorns on my burns.
I have known you not long enough to leave scars on your life
but I am unrecognisably hurt in the flames of my prison.
Blood and sweat are torn away from me.
Burnt, gone
Then I am slowly taken by heat
Your gone
Your eyes, voice, life, a memory.
Slowly, softly, haunting it clings to me.
I barely heard the wish I died for,
It was for you to have a child.
I hear it from a distance
I heave my last cry
Only the fire hears me.
Copyright © Zoe Crout | Year Posted 2025
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