“Burning,” by WITS Student Gray Liteky
March 23, 2016
Burning
When you tease me,
I feel like I’m burning,
and you lock the oven with words like,
“I hate you.”
As I burn,
I try to put out the flames with tears,
but you just laugh.
Sometimes I put the flames out
on others.
I think the flames will go out,
but they just keep burning
and then spread onto others as well.
Someone must have burned you too.
We are both locked in the oven
with only one exit.
The exit
is the word
“sorry.”
Gray Liteky wrote this poem while a student at Cascade K-8 Community School, with WITS Writer-in-Residence Vicky Edmonds. He will be opening for Emily St. John Mandel, who is giving a sold-out reading for SAL’s Literary Arts Series at Town Hall Seattle on Wednesday, March 23rd.