Jennifer Ruth Jackson
THE LEAVINGS OF FLAME
We dreamed of flying, before the world ended, before we licked cracked lips with tongues of ash and our beaches became glass, so shiny from our blowtorch bombs. The thought of colonizing Mars used to leave us sick. The black desolation before red deserts with no way home. Now we clamor for seats on a twelve-year journey to stock image oblivion. A trip with no return is sweet on the palate, a tempting morsel compared to burned-out paradise. We describe the vast oceans to our children while they stick their fingers into pitted ground and beg us to repeat the stories of fish and trees, the bedtime tales of mythology. We could tell them of werewolves and Hercules. Things we've never seen with our own eyes. It pains us, now, to relive thoughts of grass and grain. But this is all we can give them. We no longer wish for flight, desire disappearing like nontoxic air. Our hands fumble for broken faces, rubbing whiskers. We wait for time travelers to come for us, send an S.O.S. of screams. We wait, forms scrubbed by howling winds drying our tears. We shouldn't cry. It's the only water we have.
We dreamed of flying, before the world ended, before we licked cracked lips with tongues of ash and our beaches became glass, so shiny from our blowtorch bombs. The thought of colonizing Mars used to leave us sick. The black desolation before red deserts with no way home. Now we clamor for seats on a twelve-year journey to stock image oblivion. A trip with no return is sweet on the palate, a tempting morsel compared to burned-out paradise. We describe the vast oceans to our children while they stick their fingers into pitted ground and beg us to repeat the stories of fish and trees, the bedtime tales of mythology. We could tell them of werewolves and Hercules. Things we've never seen with our own eyes. It pains us, now, to relive thoughts of grass and grain. But this is all we can give them. We no longer wish for flight, desire disappearing like nontoxic air. Our hands fumble for broken faces, rubbing whiskers. We wait for time travelers to come for us, send an S.O.S. of screams. We wait, forms scrubbed by howling winds drying our tears. We shouldn't cry. It's the only water we have.
Jennifer Ruth Jackson is an award-winning poet and fiction writer whose work has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Kaleidoscope Magazine, and more. She runs a blog for disabled and/or neurodivergent writers called The Handy, Uncapped Pen from an apartment she shares with her husband. Follow her on Twitter @jenruthjackson
