My house is on fire.
but it started small.
It began as heat,
as habit,
as profits rising,
contracts stacked neatly.
Embers breathing,
paper-thin reports,
ink still wet,
a faint scent of oil,
threading its way,
up the chimney
into the evening sky.
It’s fine, they said,
it’s all contained.
Just warmth for winter,
just sacrifice for flourish,
nothing that won’t fade.
But fire listens,
fire waits.
Fire eats what we call waste.
Slowly at first,
a spark misplaced,
a seal that lied,
forests trimmed
and pipelines too near,
papers signed in corporate fear.
Then fire stood.
Then fire ran.
Learned the map of every land.
Through matchstick woods
and paper piles,
it fed on secrets,
and found the lies.
I watched it grow.
And you did too.
Stood by the window –
what a view.
Ethics outsourced,
mouths held shut,
We said someone else,
We said not us.
Still, the matches passed.
Still, the flame was fed.
While money flowed like gasoline,
and lobbyists praised the smoke.
We knew, we watched,
warmed our hands,
trained by a system
naming it growth,
naming it home,
instead of time
running low.
Behind their fences,
of steel and speech,
they swore the smoke
could never reach.
Not our fire,
not our fault,
said through coughing,
in golden halls.
But smoke is fluent
in every tongue,
it needs no passport,
it claims our lungs.
Crosses borders as a breath,
writes commas in our chests.
Full stops in the throats of children.
The sky went dark,
the birds went still.
We scrolled and took another pill,
consumed convenience,
silenced compassion,
rehearsed concern,
on the continents
of a burning house.
Keep preaching the message,
lines of denial,
not here.
not us.
not yet.
Until it’s too late
and the doorframe smokes.
My house is burning.
now the whole block glows,
cities weep and oceans boil,
while the sirens sleep –
sold, silenced,
or never built.
And still –
no one
calls
the fire brigade.
The hoses were cut,
water priced out,
trucks declared
‘non-essential’.
We sit in ash,
hands warm,
eyes dry,
debating when
while now goes by.
Our house is on fire.
And we are still arguing
about whose match it was.