ruinous empathy

Photo by Fredrik Öhlander on Unsplash

If you were a snowflake—
your mother a glacier, your arms branched and reaching—
the photos would melt you. 
The blast-orange light revealing a thrown-back head,
flames marching along an IV tube,
blaze branched, arm reaching.
You would throw your cold body
on the fire, turn to steam.
You would mourn the loss, condemn the evil.

But you are a fist of coal—
not hard enough to become a diamond, 
you are disappointment in the toe 
of a bad child's Christmas stocking.
And so you file the photos between Guilt and Luck
in your dewey decimal mind. 
Your mother was a librarian, your father an engineer.
Their shared currency was worry.

So when you wonder if you are dying,
if your CBC is tea leaves, if animals can smell cancer, 
is this self-love or -hatred? 
Ego is a red herring, a lavender menace.
And when you thought, But they're probably not even sick,
they were probably in the hospital because of the war, 
you crowned them innocent and worthy of saving,
even if no one will. 

Once you whispered a bargain: 
I want to hold a baby of my own just for a minute.
But the tragic heroes of old fairy tales always want more.
You have two babies, almost ten years.
The tragic heroes of old fairy tales always meet their fates
in the black woods. 
Hoisted by the fine print.

If you are no better 
than a war orphan on fire,
then doesn't it stand to reason 
that you are on fire.

If you stand to reason
but succumb to fire
aren't you breaking a promise
aren't you a bomb, aren't you a cold herring
gasping for facts, when what you need
is air