57. Feels Good to Burn

When you know what you're supposed to do in life, it's easier to set your course than if you've been given complete freedom. But without that freedom, you don't get to choose your destiny. Which is better? To do what has been chosen, and fully realize what has been prepared for you? Or to set out into the unknown, without no guarantees as to what will come, but at the same time without limits placed upon you?

Who will I be? A god encased in human form? Or just some guy stuck in a tiny apartment?

But seriously, though, I'm talking about something else.

I sit and gaze upon a book of fire

bequeathed to me by gesture quite offhand.

It's innocent, yet promising and dire,

insinuating smoldering demands.

Its cover is bereft of sign or script

and lacks the means to ever close completely.

Its pages' codes are simple to decrypt;

no algorithm ever burned so sweetly.

I wonder if they wish their immolation:

the snap and strike, the flare as they ignite.

If purpose built, then where the consolation

in life unmarred, if never giving light?

I fear I may have doomed them to display;

they're much too beautiful to burn away.