Matches Poem by Tsunami HiroshiSu

Who will buy my matches?
Will no one pay a penny to save me from a beating?
To buy some bread to stave away the hunger
Gnawing out my insides
And keep my skin from stretching too tight across my bones

New Year's Eve and I'm all alone
Barely sheltered from the wind and snow
I long to light a match
To bring a little heat

Blue trembling fingers strike one against the stone
And a lovely hearth and blazing crackling fire appears
And warm fills me up like drink
Before a stray gust of wind
Blows out the match

I strike another and see a starched white table cloth
Wood grain peeking from beneath it
And the table is laden with scrumptious dishes
I can almost smell the pungent goose
And then it's gone again, as fleeting as a bird

Two blackened shriveled matches
Two I should never have wasted

But I strike another all the same
And the Christmas trees I see through the picture windows of the manor houses
Are dwarfed in comparison to my tree
My beautiful tree bedecked in holly, tinsel and mistletoe
And the twinkling lights of burning candles
Then this too is fading and the candles are nothing but stars

I watch a star tumble from the heavens
Taking a headlong free fall
And I know someone is dying

Grandmother told me that a star falls when a soul goes to heaven
One fell the night she was taken from me
So I know that this is true

Just one more match
And suddenly my grandmother is there
And she enfolds me in her warm loving embrace
And I light all the matches so she doesn't fade away
And I ask her to stay with me because I know I'm dying
She just smiles and takes me with her

And in the morning they find so many twisted blackened matches