Oxygen Debt

The door clicked shut behind them

and the hallway went flat and cold.

I walked back into the kitchen

feeling suddenly, terribly old.

The wick was still holding a flame

in a jar of lavender and soot.

A tiny blue ghost of a fire

staying exactly where it was put.

It drowned in a pool of its own heat

before I could even reach the wick.

The silence in the house tonight

is heavy and gray and thick.