I would let it burn, would I?

By Siqi Qin

APR 02, 2024

**
“Her young demise was just an accident in the fire.”
I looked at the candle from the bed and I knew that 
I would want to let it burn. Let it burn until I found 
the place to carry on my true life. 
Oh, how wonderfully orchestrated.
Take me there, and I would finally be fine.

Every being was born under blessing.
Everlasting fates were beginning.
That was a place where every time 
I thought about reunions with the precious, a cat 
reaching its maturity stopped at my heart, quietly resting.

In that life my greatest fault was nothing more 
than keeping the reading lamp lit at night.
People were fearless, yet no true malice ever existed.
Apologizing was not for forgiveness but for taking responsibility.
And honesty was by any means recognized.

There would be a day when my gut digested slower 
than ice cream melting in the snowy season.
Walking to the grocery store at the end of the street 
took longer than the sun climbing down the mountain.
Remembering my name was harder than bending my knees. 
And I could, with people holding my hand, give my heartbeat 
to another lively person.

Then in my afterlife, I was my parents’ parents.
I said: “Listen, growing up is a long distance.”
But they understood how they could always be 
forgiven and restart as long as they took the step.
And they never ceased to look around and find 
some dependence.

**
But I suffocated the candle, as I should.
I wish I could just let it burn.

Let it burn until I forget that the small ambitions 
drifting to the sky fall as a rain of enmity.
That hugging me is like grasping the dissolving 
grain of salt in the sea. That even though I start 
conforming to what is real about me — crying and explaining,
No one believes my tremendous fear of humanity.

Let it burn until I forget that the sun of another day 
is rising when the brain of yesterday is still simmering.
That I find no remedy for longing but sinking in a hallucinated memory.
That I have not touched another person for a long, long time.
That my commodified heart can no longer say a word of true blessing.

Let it burn until the lyrics breeze to my chest when 
there are a thousand lost souls singing the song of solitude afar.
Until I am at a loss of judgment if I am leaving the world 
or the world is leaving my heart. Until I am ready to disappear.
And until the wind agrees not to snuff the light of another 
candle — because that one belongs to my mom. 

**
Next time I would let it burn, would I?
Let it burn until “Her young demise was just an accident in the fire.” 
When I flee all I feel will be my mother saying the spring is coming.
Oh, how wonderfully orchestrated.
Take me there, and I would finally be fine.

Siqi Qin is a Boston-based poet.