apartment fire: a poem

when I was a young tike,
like 3 or 4,
it was just my mom and I
living in a small apartment,
on the second
of three floors.

oh, and we had a cockatiel
named Max.

also at this time,
my mom was dating this guy
named Eric.
he was a cool guy.
I liked him.

anyway,
one night,
my mom is studying
for a college exam
and it’s my bedtime.

she has me brush my teeth,
and change for bed.
when I come back out,
she’s hunched over a textbook,
taking notes.

she gets up
to tuck me in bed,
and I distinctly remember
her tilting her nose up to the air,
and saying:

“something smells like burning plastic.”

she looks in the bathroom,
and the bedroom,
and the kitchen.
finds nothing,
puts me to bed.

now,
I don’t remember what
I dreamt that night,
but I do remember
waking to a nightmare.

my mom’s shaking me awake
and screaming,
“get up, get up! we have to go!”
and dragging me out of bed
as
smoke billows into the room,
clouding the ceiling,
making it hard to breathe.

she yanks me by the hand,
and we crouch-run
out of the apartment
as flames cut into the walls
like burning chainsaws.

Max is freaking out.
squawking his beak off.
thrashing his wings.
rattling his cage.

my mom leads me
to the front door
and I scream:
“wait! we have to get Max!”

to which my mom replies:
“no! we need to get out!”

she yanks me out the door,
against my pleas,
and down the
chipped concrete steps,
and into the grass courtyard,
where our neighbors
are already gathered.

right after,
Eric appears.
“you guys okay?”

I reply:
“yeah! but Max is still in there!”

Eric glances up at the building.

flames like 3D graffiti on the walls,
smoke like a hazy bridge to Heaven.

“I’ll get him.” he says.
before my mom can stop him,
he dashes up the steps,
and disappears into the smoke.

as a kid,
it was the most heroic thing
I’d ever seen.
a real movie moment.
I thought: he’s not coming back.

moments later,
he reemerges,
face covered with his elbow,
and Max’s birdcage in hand.
Max unharmed and still squawking.

he regroups with us,
and we all watch in unison
as the fire slowly makes its way
up the building,
consuming the walls
and wood
and stucco—
remorseless
and
apathetic to
our material possessions,
our food and shelter,
our memories,
our lives.

everything burnt and burning.
melted.
charred.
ashed.

I remember standing there,
on that grassy courtyard,
watching my home
slowly erode in flames.

second by second
less of it remained.

it was odd:
to see into my bedroom
from the ground.
to see the corner of the building
singed and in cinders.
to see the crossbeams
and insulation exposed.
to see my toys and bed
burn away like nothing.

here one moment,
gone the next.

and there was almost
nothing left
afterwards.

we had to go back to
living with my grandmother
and act like everything was okay.

but you don’t forget.

you never forget.

###

this poem is from my book, flames, theft, and car crashes, available on Amazon.