You are the match
That burned the whole city down.
The person who danced on the ashes
Of the ruined smouldering town
You were that blazing
Decade-long wildfire
That caused evacuations
That ate civilisations
That tore down society
And tallied a thousand casualties
With your tempers high
Above both degrees
Celsius and Fahrenheit
And your smokescreen of shadows
Obscuring the sunlight’s glow
Your embers snarled angrily
And lashed at those who dared
To touch their fragile paper skin
On your dangerous beauty
And they coughed up blood,
Inhaling charcoal fumes that
Rose above you in softest
Of intricate laced whorls,
Your gruesome work of art.
A haphazard elegance,
That you were.
A blending of tangerine and
Xanthus and azure and all
Colours invisible to the naked
Eye, birthing your kindle red.
You were luminescence;
A hopeful light of blinding hopeless
You were warmth;
A radiating heat of scorched blisters
Every part of you, flammable
Every part of you, sparking a pyre
You were life, and death, alike
Black of soot, white of light
Left to their hands to decide
Which blade they shall use
On the fates they will deride.
Yet; only one choice did it take
And you melted steel and flesh
Ignited into fueled madness
Laughing at the agony you behest
Burn it all, you crackled, glaring
No survivors, incessant destroying
The oceans of Pacific had barely
Made a dent on your aberrating
It was as if fate was on your team,
So you laughed and fought back
But gritted at your diminishing
Against the soothing cold attack
So you flared, and flickered,
You sizzled, and simmered
You were truant then tame,
For a moment you won the game.
But the cyclone stormed suddenly,
The rains fell triumphant at your loss
Your infamous last words faded
It’s…magnificent…chaos…
Your pillar of fire flared even higher,
Against the tide of the cruel water
The magnum opus of your fame,
A final swan song to your name.
You dwindled and you darkened,
You were nothing more than a stain,
And you were finally put out…
But your damage will forever remain.
You were the rampaging fire
That burned everything down
With your conflagrating hate
I watched it all, the annihilation
Of an innocent nation, and its
Own rebirth, in a phoenix state
You were the match that
Burned the whole city down.
Until everything was too late
And mercy, for I was the rough surface
Who struck so carelessly
Against your phosphorus nitrate.