By Hannah Meyer

 

What a shame it is to see a glowing light lose its spark 

The second a breath of oxygen is stolen from the embers.

What a shame it is to see arrogance 

Take its form in the shape of a boy

Who thought himself to be a man.

Somehow it all made sense at first,

Yet now I am futility left with pieces of ash

Scattered at the footfalls of the door he escaped through.

In the name of lust — this charred passion — or what have you,

I lost my power in the lively methane that was his smile,

To keep him guarded inside my fan of flames.

His fire, his white-hot fire,

Coldly callous, a frozen manipulation,

That which I mistook for incandescent intimacy. 

I leave him not with a scorched forgiveness,

But with the dying cinders,

Of my letting go and reignition.

We are built on Love and Hate,

Pride and Heartbreak,

Guilt and Shame. 

We are built on Embers of what once was 

And what is yet to be enkindled.

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Hannah Meyer is a sophomore Communication and Rhetorical Studies student at Syracuse University. She wrote her first poetry anthology Here Lies My Shattered Heart her senior year of high school and is excited for more of her work to be featured in Tell Your Story Walking.