205.348.7264 mfj@sa.ua.edu

Immolation

Joseph Arnold

 

I could see nothing else.

Nothing but the final lashes of red draining

 

From the sky. And my arms marred

By my own selfishness, my own suffering

 

Self-made. Raised from my idiotic stupor, the only thing

I could do was stumble madly through the halls,

 

Rushing down to meet you, open-armed and waiting,

Before collapsing once again. To lay in this bed

 

Gives me the sense of some Viking king being

Set alight, sent away on the river to Valhalla, carried

 

By Valkyrie, burning and yearning to be free,

To be seen. Though this time there was no need;

 

The light is now gone, the stars at last are kind,

The darkness entire.