Burning dead things
(for R.)

        This is how I burn dead
        things. I have slow hands.
The first step is to light a match
        before you watch it burn.
        Set fire to it. That first
        step for me was to burn a
        diary. The letters I wrote
        to you. I had to erase all
        memory of conversation.
How handsome you looked in that photograph.
        In that light. I tried not to
        remember specific details.
Thought that would save me.
        It was easy at first not
to let the past linger. When I burn things now
        I stay at the shallow end

of things.

—

Pushcart Prize nominated Abigail George is a South African-based blogger, essayist, poet and short story writer. Recipient of two grants from the National Arts Council, one from the Centre for the Book, and another from ECPACC. She briefly studied film at the Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg.