Charlotte Poitras

Gunshot

You dragged your own lightning to prison
because you believed
it deserved punishment
instead of healing.

They released it
the next morning.

I once offered you a blanket
so you could sleep.
You folded it away.

The fire rummaged through its own house first
but never managed to inhale it.

It had already devoured yours
and still wanted more.

A Molotov cocktail
ate through your insides
ten metal carcasses per night.
Your flesh blackened
from the inside out.

Fire-breather,
you aimed your torch at her
dazzled the ones who came
seeking blindness.
The light was so violent
the alarm never rang.

“The embers will exhaust themselves.”

My charred fingers
dialed three numbers
hoping the ringing in my ears
would dissolve into:

“He’s holding the match
but hasn’t struck it yet.
We can’t stop him.”

I testified
right hand raised
about the ember inside you
the one that threatens to swallow everything,
the forest fire
tearing our roots from the soil.

They let you burn.

I cried
Fire. Fire.

No one attended
my cremation.

A straw fire dies on its own
once you find
a brick hearth
to cradle your heat.

Flame,
you do not extinguish.

And I warm myself
by remembering
I tried
to smother the disaster,

But no water
would flow.

Charlotte Poitras is a queer neurodivergent artist-entrepreneur based in Montréal. Her practice is autobiographical or documentary, spanning literature, theatre, visual arts, and audiovisual work, with over one hundred publications. Her mission is to listen to the world and transmit the murmurs that society has failed to hear.