Happy Insomniac

Smithereens

by Alan Pritchard

The explosion was spectacular:
a pyrotechnic delight for those who lived afar,
and for us too,
in that flash of exuberant abandon,
momentarily dazzled, basking
in the disbelief that
something could be that bright.
Sparks to rival stars--
my God it was as if a fireworks factory
had finally found the arsonist's flame,
and once the fuse was lit
all of fate could ejaculate with fluorescent fury.
Man,
it was fucking beautiful!
Oh, we were so blown away,
rocketed by intense fuels
into some far-off, new-found fabulous place,
like out of space where only we matter
and where truth is,
foolishly believing we might be
only slightly singed along the way.
Problem was,
and the truth of the matter is,
"destroyed" is too tame
to describe what we did
that night we detonated all our desires at once--
the orgasmic pyroclastic
decimation of our former selves.
We thought we would be fused together in one
fabulous flight of physics, as substantial as the sun...
instead we found the heat too searing, too scorching, too intense
the flash melted our eyes
and we exploded
and vaporised.