why you take it on the match,
the final,
spluttering spark,
while ignoring the factory;
the long,
dark,
shifting dark;
the one we built ourselves,
full of dynamite,
stacked in neat,
approved rows
around the quiet feet of our children.

why we blame the kid,
the cracked and aching vessel,
for the spill of his own pain?
we chart the flood but never the rain
that fell for years inside his skull.

we are master architects of the hollow.
we sell hollow dreams with a hollow ring.
we pay the guard more than the gardener,
then wonder at the barren thing.

why blame the match
when the air is thick with gasoline?
when insurances have a profit high,
and the space between the scream
and the ear that doesn't hear
is a profitable,
silent,
enterprise?

the problem is not the spark.
the problem is the everything
that was already burning.