Rungwork

I carved my name in wet clay—bright as a shopfront sign,
thumbprint after thumbprint, daring it to shine.
Pocket full of matches. Mouth full of “I’m fine.”
The sky’s a small sticker at the top of the frame,
and everyone looks tiny when you’re talking to your shame.

I found a ladder the way you find a rumour—
not in daylight, not in proof,
just in the hush that travels
from one locked room of the chest to another.
I kissed the first rung like a lucky coin,
and watched it crumble into polite dust.

Don’t lean in close. Don’t throw me a line.
If I hear you say hope
my jaw might unclench,
my hands might remember
they were made for more than gripping.

So I strike a match on my thumbnail—small blue blade—
counting to three like it’s prayer, like it’s grade.
I tap the box twice. I set my face.
I tell the fire: take what I climbed. Leave no trace.

Rung by rung— I sing it like a dare,
a bright little anthem for the air to admire.
Look how clean it goes. Look how sure it looks.
Look how I can turn a choice into fire.

They shout down blessings like they weigh nothing,
like kindness is a feather flicked off a sleeve,
but every “you can” lands heavy—
a hand on the shoulder that won’t let you leave.
I don’t want your hands. I don’t want your light.
I don’t want tomorrow if it asks me to try.

The flames paint halos on dirt and stone.
It’s easy to call heat holy
when you’re alone long enough
to start answering yourself in smoke.
Soot under my nails. Ash in my collar.
I rub it in like proof I chose.

Rung by rung— now it’s my defence,
my neat explanation, my stitched-up sense.
If the door is gone, I don’t have to choose—
no exit, no maybe, no “try again” news.
Control is a ritual: strike, count, breathe,
watch the bright undo what belief might leave.

Up there, the world keeps going—bright, out of time—
and I hear it through the gaps when the wind aligns:
a taxi’s hiss at the corner, hazards clicking fast,
a streetlight buzzing over dust and jacarandas,
somebody laughing like it doesn’t cost them.

Funny how fire eats the proof.
Funny how I call it truth.
Funny how the ash tastes like a promise
I didn’t mean to swallow.

Now the smoke rehearses in my throat—
each word comes out already scorched,
already smaller than the mouth that made it,
already sure it’s safer to be torch than porch.

Here’s the turn: there’s always a last rung.
There’s always the part you don’t destroy
because you want one witness—
something to point at later
and say, See? I was right.

It starts to glow, not with flame—
with that stubborn shine of things that won’t vanish.
My hands don’t move.
Not forward. Not back.
Just hovering—
as if pause is a kind of doorway.

Rung by rung— now it’s consequence,
a lullaby thinning to common sense.
The choir’s gone. The air is thin.
If I call for help, it won’t sound like me—
just a voice I left in a hole
when I tried to be “free.”

Below, the ground is patient.
Above, the air is still air, not judgement.
The silence hums, yes—
but it hums like a wire,
not a verdict.

I don’t put the match to it.
I don’t bless it.
I don’t ask it to save me.
I only let it stay—
one rung,
a small bright line in the dark,
like chalk on a wall:
not an exit yet,
but the outline of a door.