30 Day Picture Prompt Challenge

Conflagration

I burned the house today.

Yesterday, I got the title marked 'paid in full.'
I had the permits and the firemen were there.
All nice and legal. Did it right, but that
was only for necessity's sake.
I started the fire with a pile of his things.
He didn't want them, but that wasn't the point.
Old flame once. blistered in reality. Searing truth.

Flames consumed his baseball gear...especially the bat.
And his riding gear...especially his crop.
And his clothes...and his collection of belts.

They burned fiercely.
Far cooler though, than my anger.

I burned the house today.

Then the house caught.
No longer the home I'd always desired.
Like dry tinder, life leeched out; it burned.
No sap left, no life blood,
nothing but hollow words.
No happy memories lingered, no sense of loss.
There was never the heat of loving passion,
only the heat from burning flesh.
Chastisement,
he called it.

I burned the house today.

Flames licked up the walls to crown the second floor
in a fireball that exploded out of that room.
It was engulfed, white hot fury cauterizing
every stripe, every weal. Now I can heal.

Studs, still standing, masked
by dancing inferno. House skeleton
after muscle and meat of a home
was charred away. Scorched timbers,
blackened heart. Incineration.

I burned the house today.

As walls collapsed, I felt free,
no longer prisoner inside them.
Sparks, caught by the wind,
spiraled, soared.
As did I. Soul restored,
I felt stronger inside.

As the house burned, so too did my anger,
more, my fears burned away to ash.
I would not be hurt anymore.
Cremation urn holds ashes of what once was.
I earned the right.
Out of the ashes I pull my heart,
out of the ashes, I regain what's mine.
Smoldering issues doused.
I came through the fire and I am whole.

I burned the house today.

315 (words)