It Spread Like Fire

What happens to oneself, when all one can do, is watch something horrible happen?

It Spread Like Fire

The heat, it was too much;

 I could feel the fire burning my skin,

Though it never touched me.

 I watched the flames dance around the town.

 The fire was spreading, so fast, and I could do nothing.

Horrified, I could only watch as the people I knew

 Ran frantically through the streets.

Their screams reaching my ears,

And each one is more painful than the last.

I glanced around at everything burning, and realized,

I could do nothing.

The town was burning, my friends were dying;

 And I stood there. I stood there and watched.

What was happening to me?

 What had I become?

 But yet,

 I already knew the answers to all of my questions.

A monster, that is what I had become.

Not a scary monster, no.

A monster within myself!

One that only I knew was there;

One that I, was afraid of.

Whispering words of nonsense to myself, I gazed upon the burning town once more;

 And with my left hand to my trembling lips, I watched the flames engulf yet another life,

 And I whispered.

I whispered to myself, the words caught and stuck in the thick, smoky air;

“What have I done?”

Author's Note

The person in the poem did not start the fire, but they feel hopeless when all they can do is watch, frozen in place.