i’m only a little flame, but i’m the one that lets us fly.
we float with the breeze, a flower petal among the clouds,
our rainbow of nylon and polyester sprawled overhead,
our tightly woven wicker basket swinging below,
touching the heavens because of me.
i propel the air up into our rainbow with my fiery golden arms,
see the sunlight streaming through the kaleidoscopic petals
as we keep flying higher and higher and higher.
i don’t think we should go higher…
the wind is too strong up here—we can’t withstand this.
i know they all want us to keep going, but…
ok fine…i’ll keep going.
icy fractals spiral their way around our rainbow
as the wind tries to keep us in place, tries to push us back down.
but i keep going, the tendrils of my red hot fire forcing us up,
fueled by an ever-present hope for awe and admiration.
above, crystals of ice slowly engulf our colors,
turning us into a blank sheet of frigid white
devoid of the color we once had.
(at least the ice makes us look like we’re sparkling…)
the ice is blocking out all the sunlight.
it’s too hard to keep going…we can’t keep going.
but we have to. they expect us to.
we stop ascending.
ice claws at our fabric above as it bellows with a ripping pain,
sending icy daggers careening through what once was our rainbow.
i try to make myself burn brighter, desperate to keep us afloat,
but every drop of progress is lost to the roaring wind
that widens each tear in our icy fabric until we’re bruised and exposed.
and then the wind finally reaches my resolute, quivering body,
shattering me into a million embers that dissipate in a cloud of smoke.
i think we’ll hit the ground any second now…and soon we’ll be nothing…
how did this happen…how did we get here…?
i was only a little flame.
The Roar 