FIRE Inside The Tiger

Don't tell me I don't know about fire. The way it moves and the way it eats. My fire has lived in a cage. I've been holding back the flames. Rub me wrong and I'll ignite, these sad sparks are flying, embers caught on the wind like a firefly storm. I watch them fall on my leaves, now my forest burns. Acre to acre, there's too much hate to breathe.

 

Fire. Fire. Fire. It brings me to my knees. I see this terrible catastrophe inside me. There's no way out, every thing's exploding. I don't know how to live, I've never been taught. I know how to burn bridges, I know how to burn myself. My shadow is still burnt to the wall from the very first explosion.

 

I still can see his dark eyes. The way he moved when his fire burned. The way he hit her. His mouth was a dragon, I learned so much about the fire from watching him. His flames speak like a crackling snap inside me still, my bark explodes in a lonely forest. I don't know how to let it all go. Some thing's in life stay with you forever I guess. I want to take the fire down to the river to let it heal my burns. This fire rips me down to ash. I don't know where my dreams are, all I know is that they're not here in my life.

 

My fire rages in all its cages. Like three dozen tigers at three different zoo's. I know whose hand help seize the fire, it wasn't God, but him- that dark skinned man who use to be my step father. Nobody knows how that damaged me, still damages me. Imagine being five and always thinking your mother is going to die any day now, and then you'd be next. That's too much horror to know so young, I'll never be the same. Violence is my river bed, my thoughts flow over it snagging its debree further down my path. I've turned colder and I feel so lost in these strange days that come and go so fast, like a crack smoker burning down the rock in seconds with steady, intense eyes.

 

I put the wind to the fire and now I'm rolling through the constant, angry storm. Somebody help me find my soul, I need its pure and different fire to light my eyes with song. Sing to me. About who I am. Don't let this hateful fire win inside me, please guide me. I don't know how to listen to the silence. I'm drifting in and out of explosions so loud all I know is war. Everyday I'm in a war zone trying to figure out this out of control fire burning in a confusing maze. Let the February clouds come so they can rain on all my flames and bring me to myself again.

 

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get tired of the fire. Will the tightrope wire beneath my feet remain strong? Will my heart stay true? It is known that the heart cannot be destroyed by fire. How is it then that the heart can blaze your life through the middle of the sun?

The heart is its own universe. Star fire in the middle of darkness. Some stars shine, some stars die I have both combinations locked away inside.

 

Love has its fire, hate has its fire. Give me the flame that won't destroy me. Give me the fire that burns the black bars of this terrible cage away. Set me free. This murderous rage is in my veins and I hope to let it go some day. Bring me to the shore that I have not seen or felt in so long now. I want to gather up the goodness that I've let get scattered by my mind and heart. Why did I let my heart close up upon itself? To feel the evil fire instead because it's all around me. How have I become this rare island living so far away from true self? Let me reach out toward the flame I adore and bring it close to me again. Touch me like a warm spirit, this heart is a widow who has lost a true love and I need the fire to light my way again. There's too much weight carried these shoulders, too many mountains hiding in the fog bank. I want the glory of the smile tattooed into my soul. A river of songs that cannot die. Touch me before the thick hate jungle wraps me up in vines and swallows everything I see.

 

I'm trying to escape this internal bleeding. Something has broken inside me. I don't care about the things I use to care about. My cares have been frozen in Siberia. The fire rolls through me like a dry forest in July. Survival means paying bills and staying stagnant in a world of lies. They want you dead or living like a blind fool in their lie. Help me see what they cover up. My eyes crave the soul, my heart needs the true passion, and my mind needs to heal the cracks littered along this intricate walkway. I'm crying out. A lone, a.m. voice spewing out confusion. Reach me before the assassins come and steal the life away from us.

 

I write my best songs under the dark sheet of night.

When all is quiet that's when I can hear the night hawk speak his flight.

Pass through me like a soft thought nobody can ever see; so nobody can ever steal you away from me. I'll hide you with my flames, let them think there's nothing there. I'll put my secrets behind the fire and let the night hawk rise to me.

 

Now I can forget about the past, it is dead anyway. But how can I drop it when so much of it is apart of me? Smother me with their everything and hope I become like you so twisted and distorted.

 

Why can't I find my soul? Shine through me. Use me for your bright purpose I've seem to forgotten. To me, this world is a terrible nightmare that needs to learn the humility of dust. Spread me to the four corners of the world so I can sing the wind. From the soft breeze to the ripping rooftop hurricane sneeze, I'll be so free to shout, be so free to inspire all the poets who seek the meaning and attempt to shed the doubt.

 

I'm so sick of walking this thin gray line. Constantly in between the shade and the light. I don't know how to decide, so much war wages behind these eyes. We're all alone in this moving skin, trying to reconnect to the lost hills of paradise that lye somewhere inside us.

 

Let me exchange this fire. Let me unlearn the path of destruction. I'll continue to ride the inner coastline hoping to find the brightest shell on the shore. One that is not broken and has been made with the kind of fire that I need. I need to hear an echo, so I can remember what it sounds like again. I f only it could repair this gaping rift inside. Bring back the bridges that I've burned so I can walk back to the river to gaze upon and marvel at every majestic ripple singing to the light,

 

I'm sick of being a puppet in their twisted show, their strings reach into anybody and everybody. I dance across their stage like the best damn slave this side of the wild Nile.Save me from the wicked hands of all the Pharaoh's whip masters. I need the narrow rivers escape through a fiery desert. Cut the f*****g strings. Tear apart the stage. Free me from this terrible, evil cage.

 

I'm so smothered in this thick black night, surfing through suicidal breaks. Pin me to the wild sea and cut me up through the reef. Everything inside seethes, blood soaks into my dreams. I can't find one good creative idea to spark the fire to the seed. I've been shredded through the life blender, torn to pieces across the hate twister. I'm still searching for something I could call my own. Right now I feel the need to roam somewhere far away. There's too many unresolved emotions hiding in my reservoir. So much fire in my bones, the only thing I know are storms. So f*****g violent, I feel myself explode. Over and over tipping the scales, watching me fail. I look in the well for water to try and attempt to tame the fire. I feel it burn down a thousand acres of smiles. I've walked too many miles in this bitter night. My teeth rattle, ice is frozen in my heart, poison ivy in my thoughts. Darkest soul becomes my midnight and falling rocks my roadblock.

 

Make the fire. Walk the fire. Reach out to the point of all explosive shrieks and snaps, I'm falling toward black ground. Rising down to lost dreams. I feel the fire like an internal stream take me alone through the world. I can take all your f*****g hate and still have room enough to burn. I'll skydive through the hard nights, air climb back to sunlight and stain the clouds with fire. I'll be the sunset in the water to make it turn to blood. Soft light on horizon there's one thing I need to know? Did my soul create the sun? I'm slipping on a lake of ice and there's too many demons to out run. Distant enemies collide inside making everything so numb.

 

The fire eats the fire. I'm still patiently waiting through the numbers waiting for the last remaining one. One heart to connect to. One soul to shine through. Instead I slide down the dark dune and disappear into a stranger. I'm such a stranger to this world tending the fires close inside. Breathe in the hate again tonight, have the stars stopped and blinked briefly out of time. Can't see the fire in the sky....Help me put back the light and melt the concrete ice. Let us drown the world again. I want to find the brightest miracle ever to save my soul. I need a morning song of bliss to break through this confusing shift of mist.

 

Someone guide me through these waves of flame. Hot high walls carry me through my life and burn down my brightest paradise only known now to me as memory. Why can't I remember how to be carefree? Spark a star into my heart and never leave me alone again. So much faith was shattered too young. Now I lost the road to heaven. I miss the summer river and everything you bring. Let me know you before I die so I can ride the clouds tonight. If the universe is the body of God, help me sing your soul before the darkness takes it all away. I'm sick of being trapped by my self corrupting mind because disorder is just another chain one of many steel snakes living on my arms.

 

Cut away these venomous mouths crawling in my skin. I feel so serrated like a lost steak knife in the loneliest night known to man. Out of use. Waiting for someone to pick me up and use me for a bright purpose. Let me cut the pig to reveal the evil blood. No more New World Order. I want to give them my fire and watch them incinerate just like they plan to do to us.

 

For now I continue to ride down the broken blues freeway where abandoned cars sit for rescue like fatherless children awaiting arms and smiles from a kindness they do not know outside themselves. The outside world moves with such velocity it sweeps them into a black hole only known as the forgotten roadside. Welcome to the wreckage. I feel the obvious, sudden loneliness wash over me in a silence that midnight streets feel on a week day. Nobody dares to roam these sullen streets past 9 p.m. Save them for the outcast misfit struggling to maintain freedom.

 

Wash the nights away with rum as I get one step closer to an alleyway bum whose only goal is to buy a 40 oz. I need to rebuild the fire. So tortured inside I put the i in dying. I'm too strong now for crying. Nothing feels right. Dark holes in my soul as the fading light seeps out through the hollow canyon tolls. Rack my world with laws that should not exist. Slam me against the wall. Put my brain inside their TV idiot box. Numb me out with poison, grief, and endless tides of silent rage. Give me back the summer river and save me from the flames. I can feel the fire. Angels and demons wrestle in the heat. Lovers and haters moan and bloom in the crackle. Hope is rushed, blitzed, and savagely tackled. Now it's on the injured list, sitting so sad on the bench, lost in the crowd, anonymous, fallen. I feel all the dangerous needles inside pump my life with rattlesnakes. I can't get back to the simple man, can't shake off the weary, cruel world from my shoulders. Down. Down. Down. Crashing like scud missiles through an Embassy already in ruin.

 

I live in the waste lands.

 

Desolation is spoken, hate is realized in absolute fire. The angels vanish, love is tossed away like toy you out grew long ago. Get casted to the fire, get lashed by orange whips, changed by red eyes, and burned by blue dragons. All my colors make up the fire. Hate is in my fire, fire in my hate. A smoking darkness where the forest once bloomed. I can only speak in unseen ashes, secret sorrows glow like a summer moon behind the silent creeping cloud. All my edges rough and dark ; I'm taken to the sharpest point located so deep within my heart. I don't know how to hide my pain I wear it on the outside like puddles of rain. I live in the stagnant quiet watching their footsteps walk my water and tread my razor edge. Get addicted to the fire. Forgive me father I don't know what I'm doing. Mercy is a foreigner nobody wants to let in to their country. Execution is my expectation, fire my only teacher, throw me in detention and leave me to bleed alone to die.

 

How many times have I felt this way in life? Standing so alone through this valley of fire. Waiting for something better than this roasting scorch. Struggling in search, trying to open doors within.

 

Why can't I find those green rolling hills? Something that is not ruined by the fire. Give me the silent meadow and the wild, jagged peak. How do I tame the tyranny of the tiger? His claws rip out everything, and the fire is emblazoned forever in my soul. The fire stalks the fire, the fire's inside the tiger, his eyes are like the sun, his speed is like the light, he tracks me down and drinks my blood, now I become the tiger lost inside the sun.

 

Talk with the fire, speak the fire, I understand the flames generated by my heat, and I'm not sure if this spectacle will ever be self contained. Break out through the inside- smoke, wind, endless echoes and 1 million tigers burning higher with the sun explosions. The only thing that gets extinguished are the high hopes I had so long ago.

 

The fire meets the fire.

 

It's a standoff through the canyon.

 

Addiction feeds the fire, the fire feeds addiction. There's a constant spear inside, so many enemies hide behind my eyes, I don't know what is right. Where has the golden army who fights for goodness gone? This place feels so wrong. I try to hold onto the sacred heart, I feel it slipping through my hands in the slimy moon-less dark.

 

I want to speak to the river, let waters wash away my transgression, meet me on the slippery slides of childhood play. Run your wind along my face I ache to feel the clouds and wish to drink your spring-time grace before the fire meets the wind and turns everything so black again. Touch me with mercy and lead me to my secret soul.

 

 

All rights reserved Scott Lee

2004