The fire alarm chirps once. Twice. Then flips its switch
and screams through the hallway like a demon with a rent bill and no patience.
Smoke slides under my door in lazy ribbons, soft as theft,
while the paint blisters and the shadows stand up tall like they want a crowd.
I could grab the extinguisher. Hit the stairs. Pound on every neighbor’s door
until my knuckles split and my throat tastes like pennies.
I stretch like I’m clocking out, sit on the bed’s edge,
light a cigarette, watch the ash hit the floor, and think: not my goddamn problem tonight.
—
The screen spits headlines with bright little chimes,
catastrophe packaged neat, stacked like bodies in a feed nobody has to touch.
War here, flood there, kids behind fences, rich men chewing on every bleeding need
like it’s a fucking buffet with table service.
I scroll with one thumb, heart rate flat, no spike, no prayer, no heroic itch,
just a dull “figures” rattling around my skull.
Every story wants my outrage on demand,
and I sit there calm as a locked door, leg twitching slow,
letting the world strain without my sweat.
—
You yell how can you not care,
like shouting fixes a single flame or buys back a single hour.
I retired from panic the night nobody listened to my screams
and still expected my hands to save them.
—
Fine. Let it burn.
Let the sky turn black and the streets crack under heat like old lies finally splitting open.
I ran around with buckets long enough—let somebody else blister their feet and call it virtue
while I keep my lungs to myself.
If the city goes up tonight while I sip and stare
and they still don’t learn a damn thing from the smoke,
chalk me up as one more bastard who said: fine. Let it burn.
—
Mother calls, voice thin. Says she needs help with the meds and the bills
and the quiet terror of getting old in a country that charges for mercy.
I stare at the phone till it stops ringing, then I let the silence win,
throw on a movie, chase a couple cheap thrills like I earned a break from being human.
Guilt crawls up my spine like roaches in kitchen light,
then it settles in, gets comfortable, falls asleep like it paid rent in my ribs.
I mute the memories, crank the volume up,
let the worry sink deep where it can rot without demanding a speech from me.
—
I used to sprint into every blaze till my hair smelled like smoke for weeks
and my hands shook in the sink like they were still holding strangers.
Nobody handed me water, they handed me more fires, more demands, more shrieks,
more people who loved my labor and hated my limits.
Something in me snapped one midnight on the third unthanked run,
lungs raw, eyes stung, pride gutted, still being told to hurry the fuck up.
Ever since, my first thought watching any flame is: good. Let it be done.
Let the ash prove what my exhaustion couldn’t.
—
Fine. Let it burn.
Let the sky turn black and the streets crack under heat like old lies finally splitting open.
I ran around with buckets long enough—let somebody else blister their feet and call it virtue
while I keep my lungs to myself.
If the city goes up tonight while I sip and stare
and they still don’t learn a damn thing from the smoke,
chalk me up as one more bastard who said: fine. Let it burn.
—
I know what I’m doing. I know my calm is a choice
and my silence is a small, clean act of violence dressed up as rest.
I remember the old version of me, frantic and decent,
believing effort could shame people into decency,
believing I could carry the whole block on my back.
I was the idiot knocking on doors, dragging bodies, begging for help,
getting stared at, getting judged, getting used, getting told I should be grateful.
Now I keep my hands clean and my conscience ugly,
a private strike, a hard little fuck-you
to every mouth that only opens once the smoke reaches them.
—
When they call me heartless on the breaking banner
and dig through my history for proof I never earned,
tell them I once ran till my lungs bled and my legs buckled under duty.
Then I stopped. Said fuck this. Watched the sirens fade
like a lesson nobody wanted until it was too late.
Fine. Let it burn. Let the sky turn black and the streets crack under heat.
Let the night keep score in smoke.
Chalk me up as one more bastard who said:
fine. Fuck it. Let it burn. Let it burn.