Alone in the abyss.
Once a strong tree,
the earth cracked open
and swallowed her whole.

I sensed her desperate loneliness
cleverly lacing itself in cigarette halos
and sparkling in falling stars.
Her face was a battle zone.

My situation was different;
I had dug my own grave –
originally a gradual decline,
it turned in a spiral down.

Other hands held shovels,
lying in wait for their turn.
With each foot closer to six,
my feet inching over the edge.

By the time the sun had sunk
we'd dug far past the goal;
six feet had become six yards
there was no way to go but to fall.

A single passenger plane flew overhead.
The pilot caught a spark of the fire;
He picked me up and carted me on.
Resurrection is not so sweet.

The flames licked at my thoughts;
my eyes were in smoke and haze.
Sparks racing, burning my veins,
but the pilot wasn't looking anymore.

Blinking, aching, searing pain;
I looked around, and saw her.
She, too, was lost, far from home
and demanded my silent reply.

I turned and she flinched back –
She must have seen my eyes,
Stone-cold, hard, icy blue
the way they change, fighting flame.

Her words were lost in a garble,
a symphony of the screams I'd heard.
She said she wanted me to buckle down;
she couldn't stand to see a crash-and-burn.

She thought that, behind my ice wall,
the engine had simply burst a flame.
I didn't have the heart to tell her then,
But she was looking at the aftermath.

Warped metal silhouetted in smoke
Mangled pilot lost in the debris
My battered arm, waving in the wreckage,
Begging her to save me from my own flame.