It started as a small fire.
A campfire compared to its successor that grew disastrously.
No one batted an eye at the flames as they continued through their day.
Not a soul imagined that the tiny ember would create chaos in the little town.
The treeline violently took ruin as the wildfire spread,
Holding twenty-two thousand acres hostage in its fiery grasp.
The community rushed home to pack their lives into trucks and
Left everything that could not fit behind to be engulfed.
Homes of good citizens melted away in the dry heat,
Forgotten cars became consumed,
And the normal routine of the people ceased to exist.
Danger crawled across the forest while leaving traces of its presence in tree stumps and roots.
Containment numbers soared to seventy percent and within a breath, it plummeted to five percent.
Evacuation became the only logical answer for everyone near the fire’s growing reign.
Miles away, people rushed into their homes and rerouted their entire living situations,
Even pausing kitchen appliances being delivered in fear that this tragedy would capture it.
How can someone protect themselves from suffering that they didn’t cause?
No matter the direction taken in situations like these,
Fear calls upon squatter’s rights and evicts peace instantly.
Nature’s disasters are truly heartbreaking,
But a mind cannot comprehend destruction until it happens close to home.
A heart constantly mixes its cocktail of sympathy for these horrible incidents,
But empathy only nods in silence to the shared sting.
Elyssa Latham (she/her) is a woman of words, and reader. Elyssa’s works express strong emotions that people go through and get the reader to feel those emotions alongside her. She wants readers to take away that it is okay to allow yourself to feel and that you can craft art out of pain.
Featured image by Joshua Newton on Unsplash.
