You were the burning briquette in her room;
I was
the heat of the oven
the flame on the kitchen stove
the sealing rubber along the window frame
the clothes stuffed under the door.

You left her room both palms black,
face smeared with trails of
coal dusts you wiped your cold sweat off with.
Everyone could tell your guilt.

I left her room pale and sweaty.
Grieved and angry.

You're a survivor, I was told,
an unknowing passenger.
Yet the toxic smoke lingered, a thin, permanent
layer on my skin,
the smell a reminder of my sin.

Two years on. Forgotten key to the dusty old home. Flushing the pages blank to the same somber tone.