Firenado

A horror poem about the day the wind turned to fire.

Inspired by a writing prompt from HVR

Firenado

The wind turned.

No warning.
No storm.
Only a slow tightening of the air
as if the sky had begun to breathe through its teeth.

Smoke lifted from the hills
and bent sideways.

Then it twisted.

A column of flame rose from the ground
spinning like a living spine.

The trees bowed.

Leaves burned before they touched the fire.
Birds fell from the sky mid-flight
their wings curling inward.

The air screamed.

Fire climbed into the clouds
dragging the earth upward with it
fences
branches
pieces of houses
whole memories.

Inside the spiral
the flames moved with purpose.

They folded over themselves
like muscle tightening
like jaws learning the shape of hunger.

The ground below blackened and cracked
the soil glowing red beneath the ash
as if something beneath the earth
had opened an eye.

The wind fed it.

Faster.
Higher.
Wider.

The fire began to howl.

A sound deeper than thunder
a sound that carried voices inside it
whispers caught in the spinning heat.

The kind of voices that make people run
even when they do not know why.

The spiral crossed the field.

Grass turned to dust.

The barn collapsed inward
drawn into the spinning throat of flame.

In the center
something moved.

A shape inside the fire
stretching upward
taller than the trees.

The wind kept turning.

The fire kept climbing.

And somewhere in the roar
the earth realized

the sky had grown teeth.

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