Fire Escape's 2008 Poetry Third Prize Winner

Third Prize Fire Escape 2008 Poetry Contest

For Your Pathos
by Miranda, China/USA, Age 17

you will pound mettle into me
before our years are over—
I sometimes wonder
if this is your intent, or
perhaps
you have failed even yourself.

at one time
yours were my only margins,
and I fit snugly
between the lines of your page.

your stark nakedness of mind
was protected only
by the thin threads that bound us.

but soon, you snapped and were felled
by your own
thin daggers.

I resent you
because you remind me
of what is impossible.