No. 4
"With my burned hands, I write on the nature of fire."
I’m trying to get your attention.
I’m trying to lie on my side and pretend I asked for it.
I asked for it in a barrel over Niagara Falls.
I asked for it with my hands on fire and you trying to blow them out.
My hands, like birthday candles, marking the passage of time.
Like birthday candles, my eyes flaring up and going dark again.
Again was the only word in my vocabulary for seventeen days.
Seventeen days and nights I repeated your name down a ventilation duct.
Seventeen days and nights no one answered.
I was lying on my back asking for it.
I was trying to get your attention.