Scorched Earth Warfare

Neva ensminger-holland

During the last summer of my childhood, I lit matches

and threw them into the gasoline my father helped me 

pour onto the driveway. I scrawled my name in the ashes

the blaze left behind, hoping that even if no one else did,

the fire would remember me. I waited for my mother

to come home and tell me she was disappointed in me

but she stayed away, because she thought it was time 

for me to take care of my own messes. She told me

that she was tired of sweeping up the pieces of all

the people whose wills I’ve broken. I promised her

that I had no one left to hurt, but I was wrong because 

when the coals were finally cool, I taught my little sister

to ride a bike in the patch of wet grass by the drainage

ditch and we took my birthday money and planned

to blow this town. We rode down to the train station, 

looking to buy a cheap ticket to anywhere, but I hadn’t

saved enough for us both to go. We had no choice

but to turn back. I saw the pain in her scrunched up face

when I told her that she had to return to the wreckage,

but that I was leaving. I led her back to my father

and tried my best to ignore him as he called me

his daughter and said that it was not too late

to rebuild. I believed him. Still, I left them

standing in the weeds where the front yard used to be.

Neva Ensminger-Holland is a senior majoring in creative writing at Interlochen Arts Academy. She is a YoungArts award winner and an American Voices nominee in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Her work is published or forthcoming in The Interlochen Review and the YoungArts anthology. In her free time, she enjoys wearing ripped tights in the winter, watching Gilmore Girls with her roommate, and hot-gluing the straps back on her platform Mary-Janes.