When I was a very little girl,
the house behind us
burned to the ground.
I remember
standing at my bedroom window
hypnotized by the flames.
The sirens, the yelling
the sounds of things
crashing down,
disturbing the peace
of a warm, summer night.

In the morning,
my mother and I
walked around the corner
to see what was left.
There was a smell,
acrid and bitter,
of charred, wet wood.
The smell of utter sadness.
It lingered in the air for days.

Something in my life
is beginning to smolder.
Soon there will be flames
and confusion
and a great crashing down.

And afterward,
the achingly melancholy scent
of what was
and is no more.