Hell Currency
Hell Currency
Who likes standing so close to huge fires?
Heat that gnaws at skin, smoke bullying
eyes into reacting. Uncontrollably.
As if I needed a directive to cry.
I spent hours folding sincerity.
Paper taels fat with grief, ready to
incinerate in seconds. Each one meant more
than an army of paper cranes.
The landslide ratio of lost love versus love,
the concept of eternity, realised.
On the Hell banknotes, the numerical value
represented my regrets. Zeros the length of
sentences, expressing the reconciliation
of mortal limitations and lavish piety.
Inflation was an alien concept, as the bereaved
raced each other to establish the deceased
as instant billionaires.
Each dollar thrown into the offerings was this:
'I cannot burn my heart for you,
so this is what my heart wants to give you.'
Staring at the fire with the weight of your
absence strapped
to my shoulders,
every fiery emissary danced my sadness,
crackling and folding and bending, yielding to
fire. Showing me how everything had to happen.
I would eventually return to dirt, life regenerates.
But back then all I sought was for my pain to
disintegrate with the tribute,
whispering ashes.
Who likes standing so close to huge fires?
Heat that gnaws at skin, smoke bullying
eyes into reacting. Uncontrollably.
As if I needed a directive to cry.
I spent hours folding sincerity.
Paper taels fat with grief, ready to
incinerate in seconds. Each one meant more
than an army of paper cranes.
The landslide ratio of lost love versus love,
the concept of eternity, realised.
On the Hell banknotes, the numerical value
represented my regrets. Zeros the length of
sentences, expressing the reconciliation
of mortal limitations and lavish piety.
Inflation was an alien concept, as the bereaved
raced each other to establish the deceased
as instant billionaires.
Each dollar thrown into the offerings was this:
'I cannot burn my heart for you,
so this is what my heart wants to give you.'
Staring at the fire with the weight of your
absence strapped
to my shoulders,
every fiery emissary danced my sadness,
crackling and folding and bending, yielding to
fire. Showing me how everything had to happen.
I would eventually return to dirt, life regenerates.
But back then all I sought was for my pain to
disintegrate with the tribute,
whispering ashes.