VALIUM IN THE FLAME The fire woke me wearing breath, A choir built of want and death, It sang my name in calcium, And set my nerves to stadium. I burned where sleep refused to come, My thoughts like drums in cranium, Each heartbeat ringing sacrament A vow unspoken, delirium. I knelt inside the afterglow Where sinners learn what saints don’t know, And kissed the spark that called me son Before the ash had fully grown. They poured me peace in porcelain, A hush with lips of pallium, A velvet yes, a soft restraint They called it calm. I called it Valium. The flame did not depart my bones, It only learned to lower tones, Like feedback trapped in amplifier hum, A song postponed, a wire undone. I slept through storms I should have bled, Dreamt I was clean, but woke up dead, No scorch, no mark, no holy stain Just quiet chewing through my brain. For fire counts what silence steals, Keeps ledger inked in phantom feels, Each swallowed scream, each muted cry Compounds the debt with interest high. So I returned to molten truth, To sparks that split the tongue in two, Let language blister, let chords scream, Let sweat baptize what pills had sealed. I held the flame like contraband, A matchstick clenched in shaking hand, And felt it whisper not destroy But use me right or use me wrong. No cure lives here. No absolution. Only choice and substitution. To burn and shape, or numb and hide, To feed the flame or let it bide. So write this down in ash and psalm: Peace is not the same as calm. Some men kneel numb in sanctuary, Some light the dark with incendiary. And if I glow, if I’m undone, If heat still speaks when songs are sung, Know this truth I carry proud I chose the flame. I paid it loud. Let angels choke on helium, Let saints grow pale with pallium I’ll take my scars, my breath, my name, And leave the Valium in the flame.
