You Lit the

Fire
part I

a book of poems by

casey benish
 table of
contents
my heart, soul, & tears

1. you lit the fire

2. growth
3. naive
4. sobriety
5. hiraeth
6. greed
7. greed (cont.)
8. misconceptions of
feminism
9. my first panic attack
10. breathing walls
11. breathing walls (part ii)
12. digital depression
13. hypocrisy
14. palpitate
15. intentions spark
creation
16. sixteen again
17. aftershocks
18. stockholm syndrome
19. birthday party

@caseyshailpoetry | caseyshailpoetry@gmail.com
self-published by casey shail benish
etters, pennsylvania 

YOU LIT THE FIRE COPYRIGHT 2019 caseyshailpoetry

 you lit the fire

The connection between us,

When you grazed bare skin,
Created a spark
That lit this heart of mine on fire.

But now that you’re gone,

I’m left frantically searching for a way to put it out
Before I’m engulfed in your flames.

you lit the fire | 1

 growth
Nature blooms over every inch of her.
Cascading from the skin of her legs,
To the darkness between them.

A different girl looks back at her

Everyday in the mirror,
Each one more grown than the last.

The claws of a tiger sink deep into her thighs,

Slaughtering the youth which once survived beneath the surface,
Littering soft skin in a never-ending pattern of scars.

Pieces of herself shed involuntarily,

Igniting unbearable torture within,
And no promise of ending.

Flowers bloom from her chest

And swell as the years go by.

Beauty and strength emerge

From a place deep within her soul,
A passion which never before existed.

She ignites the world behind her,

Always keeping her eyes open,
Cautious of blades of glass that may fall in her path.

you lit the fire | 2

 naive
I am cursed with the ability
To see the good in everyone.

I have seen the blinking halos

Atop the heads of angels
Who have succumbed under the devil’s preachings.

Encountered, firsthand, evil people

Who wreak havoc
Because it never fails to get them noticed.

I have pondered over excuses,

Hoping with all my heart
That truth is left swimming on the shallow surface.

And yet, despite the epiphany,

I have turned my head,
Refusing to side with the angry,
The bitter, and the broken.

I don’t want to see the light

In those who kill the innocent
And break hearts.

you lit the fire | 3

 sobriety
I tell myself to get drunk until the walls we’ve constructed
Fade into oblivion, leaving us standing on opposite sides of a field,
Waiting for someone to take the first shot.

I drink until your crimes are no more

Than that of someone who stole a gun from a serial killer,
Morphing you into a hero rather than a thief.

Your offenses are so small, they’re almost tangible.

Shrinking in the very palm of my hand.

I belittle your wrongdoings out of habit,

Excusing even the most controlling behaviors.

“We both know you’ll do what I want,”

You said because you knew me so well.
I was your prisoner,
Tied in at the ankles by my insecurities.

You remember those December nights,

How you’d come to me in desperate morning hours,
And I’d force through my panic attacks
To give you what you wanted.

But then May came and the frost cleared in my mind,

Aiding me in the realization that you were using my loyalty to your
advantage.

I stopped drinking and allowed my sober mind to rebuild the walls even
stronger.
you lit the fire | 4
 hiraeth
Hiraeth (n): A longing for a home to which you cannot return, or for a
home which may have never been

Here,
I find myself
Realizing my worth,
And disallowing you to suck me back in.
Everything makes sense now.
The false hope you instilled within me,
Hoping it would be enough to keep me locked away.

How does it feel to destroy the foundations of a house that could

never be a home?

you lit the fire | 5

 greed
Planet Earth was handed over on a silver platter,
Destined to have unbelievable potential.
Yet, we spend our nights wishing away the days
Until weekends reappear to take away the layer
Of dust formed in five days’ time.

Destressing happens only two out of seven days,

And humanity is left to spend the other five
Running on the most unreliable resource.

It isn’t the needs carved into our DNA that allow creativity to flow and
happiness to burn a hole deep within our hearts.
It’s currency in the form of back-breaking work,
Taken from trees unforgivingly and used for selfish human desire.

It’s funny how money works.

The more you have, the more you earn.
The more you earn, the more hungry you become.

For some, picking up a hundred dollar bill is merely a waste of time.

Because in that moment,
Another thousand has replaced it.

you lit the fire | 6

 greed (cont.)
Yet, in the exact same reality,
Someone else yearns for an extra hundred dollar bill,
Knowing it is the difference between a balanced meal
And hunger for something that isn’t printed on paper.

Jealousy eats away at bits of the latter’s soul at the realization

Of just how unfair the system truly is.
How, all-in-all, it favors people who don’t always deserve it.

This world could have been anything.

Yet, greediness has overtaken the freedom its foundations were built
on,
Leaving us constantly waiting,

Waiting,

W a i t i n g .

Wishing we could skip a majority of the precious moments we have

been gifted,
Just so we can partake in the activities we enjoy
While we’re still here.

you lit the fire | 7

 misconceptions of feminism
When a woman has sex with someone she cares about,
She’s a whore who can’t keep her hands to herself.

And if she’s a virgin--

She’s a prude,
Unable to find a man to heal her.

However, when a man has sex,

He receives high fives from this way and that.
Yet compared to a girl,
If his virginity is still in tact.

What’s so offensive about femininity?

Girls are fine when they’re unclothed and under your control,
In a bed made for two.

But when they’re opinionated and free from your grasp,

Suddenly they’re whining for something that isn’t necessary.

Women had to teach themselves to fight by force

Because without a fight, we wouldn’t have earned the very same rights
That men gifted themselves in The Constitution.

Men laugh at the misconceptions synonymous with the term “feminism”.

They accuse us of crazy things,
Such as hating men or trying to be the superior sex.

The fact of the matter is,

I’m tired of being told to grow a pair when my nerves kick in.

you lit the fire | 8

 my first panic attack

I sat, tucked away underneath the empty closet shelves,

Like an old board game no longer in play.

I cried dry tears and craved your touch,

Desired attention nobody had the
possibility of giving me.

I scraped bare skin with d i s g u s t i n g,

chewed-up nails,
And felt the uneasy pumping of my heart
Transform into an earthquake right inside of me.

I felt like a dark abyss with nothing promising to give,

A burden that wanted to bother just a little longer.

The heat that swarmed around and filled the hollow insides of my
soul was not what was suffocating me,
It was my worrying mind that wouldn’t take an obvious hint.

you lit the fire | 9

 breathing walls
Empty walls have a more intricate meaning
Than ever could a beating heart.
These walls--they breath, and they hear.
And they’ve seen things that nobody should see,
Let alone feel.

The walls were there at three in the morning,

When a broken heart served as a roadblock for sleep.
They stayed when my father wouldn't,
And kept me grounded when my mom slipped out routinely.

Everybody warned me not to attach myself to temporary things,

And I naively thought they meant human beings.
But here I come to find that I am more attached to these four empty walls
Than ever was I connected to another human soul.

As the space clears out,

And the echoes become more evident,
I hear my screams get lost in an infinite battle.

I remember growing up here.

An endless pressure existed against my ribcage,
Threatening to crack my bones and gnaw at the surface of my flesh.
Sometimes the pressure succeeded and
I wound up on the bathroom floor,
Dizziness comforting the holes in my heart.

Where were the people who promised to be there on nights like that,
When I all but planned my funeral in my head,
And death seemed like a viable option?

But the walls always comforted me.

I could dress them up and act like everything was okay.

If only my heart was as strong as your smooth complexion,

Holding together through even the toughest tsunamis.

Leaving the place I call home shatters me in the end,

Because it feels like I'm leaving my last and only friend.
But we will meet again one day, I promise.
Even if only in memories.
you lit the fire | 10
 breathing walls (part ii)
A realization, three years in the making.

These walls used to live and breathe.

They would play dress up at my request and comfort me in their
never-ending potential.
A form of permanent expression, built by meticulously placing brick
over brick.

Now, I see the truth.

These walls are nothing more than a pathetic display of fragility.
Their mere existence is a reminder that I am a bird,
Trapped in an eternal cage.
And no matter how much I play pretend,
The same drywall exists under the mask.

Expression is a myth created to comfort broken souls.

Yet, we crave the need to show our true colors,
Until the ability is ripped away at the hands of others.

I want these walls to choke.

I want them to suffocate, as I do, when I stare into their vastness.

I want tornadoes to rip them down,

Until they've become nothing more than a pile of debris against the
pavement.

Then, and only then,

Will comfort find its way back into my sour heart.

you lit the fire | 11

 digital depression
When did the age of digital expression
Turn into viral depression?

They say mental illnesses are a creation of my own mind,

I ignore it for the sake of keeping older generations blind.
For, if they knew what truly went on in my head,
They would hear all dark thoughts left unsaid.

You see, I know my anxieties aren't a figment of my

imagination.
They're caused by overwhelming feelings of alienation.
Desperation reaches through the cracks of a screen,
Refining my psyche into a heinous murder scene.

But things still aren't as they seem.

They think having the world at your fingertips is some sort
of dream,
But those fingertips serve as an anxiety enhancer,
Always scrolling, searching for some unknown answer.

The information we want will never exist on Twitter.

Looking, lurking, will only leave a heart sour and a mind
bitter.
Powering down causes mental friction
Because this blue light has become an embarassing
addiction.

you lit the fire | 12

 hypocrisy
Higher powers are said to heal
every flaw in the nooks and crannies
of a soul that's been through
tumultuous trauma and teenage tendencies.

You praise these ideas along with the world.

yet I watch as you go about your day,
careless as to what
such a being has identified you as.

Part of me wants to believe

that sins are truly being soaked up
in some endless cycle,
incomprehensible to the inferior.

Over the years I've failed to see

where God comes into the equation of life.
and I have been left with a label that I carry around
for all the world to see.

Call me an atheist.
shout it at the top of your lungs to the almighty,
and hope he casts his poison against me,
as I lay in bed asleep.

React as you may,

but your words fail to pierce below the surface of my skin,
for I have seen your reckless sins.

I'd like to say that every move you make is flawless.

Seductive, like a tiger stalking prey.

or so you'd like to believe.
but you have left a trail of bread cumbs in your path,
and one day the world will see.

You weren't any more perfect than the so-called atheists

who were dealt the receiving end of judgement.
you lit the fire | 13
 palpitate

I am not scared of death,

But I am phased by the lack of palpitations in my heart
when I imagine
My own sanity depleting into nothing,
Or noticing myself on the opposite side of normative
society.

you lit the fire | 14

 intentions
spark creation
I've been in purgatory for the entirety of my concious life,
Facing punishment for the sinful relationship I was conceived
from,
Which tore the heavens in two.

My parents were cast away to hell,

Along with the love
They claimed existed between them.

In reality, nothing resembling a spark even

Remotely existed between their two polluted souls.

A placebo connection was formed,

And chains grew between two people
Broken beyond repair.

They decided to coexist within these infinite valleys,

And call it love, for fear that such an emotion would remain
unknown.

It only took a few years for rust to form along their binds,
Leaving a bitter aftertaste in each prisoner's mouth.
They spat insults at one another,
Hoping to make the flavor dissipate.

Their efforts failed.

Witnesses were diagnosed with whiplash after their 'he-said-
she-said' arguments were repeated tirelessly, day in and day
out.

However, despite the two-man war,

Stuck in an endless stalemate,
The decision to procreate stuck out like a sore thumb.

And I was the ultimate sacrifice.

you lit the fire | 15

 sixteen again

I am finally reclaiming
Songs that remind me of you.
Letting them bounce off like rubber,
Rather than stick like glue.

These words used to seep into my skin

And poison each inch of my soul.
Now they only warm me to the core,
No longer taking a toll.

Melodies stuck in my head cause me to dance,

Instead of crumble inside.
I've fallen in love again,
Separating each one from you, far and wide.

you lit the fire | 16

 aftershocks

She locked me away in a sealed, soundproof box,

Hoping I wouldn't widen my horizons.
Because the less I knew about the world around me,
The more I would normalize her manipulative actions.

Then, as a final kicker,

She gaslit me to melt away the growing suspicions.
The heat infected my mind and diseased my soul.

She brainwashed me thoruoughly, so that even

Years after my escpae,
Life would still feel like a series of aftershocks as a result of
her man-made

e
a
r
t
h
q
u
a
k
e.

you lit the fire | 17

 stockholm syndrome
Despite the wreckage at my feet,
I still saw the universe in its
entirety when I looked at you.
And I wondered how it was
possible.
You were the one who altered
my definition of pain,
Tweaking it until your heart was
the only resolution.
The antidote to the contagious
poison,
Already set free within my
bloodstream.
The infecftion coursed through
my veins,
Painfully obliterating every fiber
of my being,
Until the tears in my eyes blinded
me
From what I truly needed to
witness.
You were the bad guy.
But I painted you as the hero,
My knight in shining armor,
Always arriving to patch me up
and sweep me off my feet.
The stockholm syndrome
claimed me.
It sent me spiralling into years of
reassessing and reinventing.
My life revolved around you.
I would have dug my own grave
and pulled my beating heart out
of my chest,
If only you had asked me.
The extended pain,
The lift-ups,
Followed by the inevitable let-
downs,
Must have been the closest one
can come to death,
While still being alive.
The pleasure you found in my
pain allowed you to get off,
To take everyhting you wanted
from me and more,
Until you were bored of my
loyalties.
Then, you ripped off my clothes
and left me, naked on the
pavement,
Begging strangers not to walk all
over my mangled body
The way you had been doing for
years.
I saw you as my savior,
Despite the fact that you were the
one setting me up for distraught.
All so you could experience the
upper hand again.
If only I had learned to wipe my
eyes sooner, rather than later.
I would have gained a new
perspective.
Then, maybe I'd be the one
picking and prying the contents of
your mind, Instead of altering my
mechanics in your favor.
you lit the fire | 18
 birthday party
Is it really a crime, if I only changed my mind?
Because, I have to admit,
Even though there were at least ten 'no's,
A yes still followed in their footsteps.

I wasn't blind to your selective hearing.

Or the excuses you'd stir up to withhold the 'good guy'
persona.

In a last ditch effort,

I jokingly apologized in the off chance I fell asleep throughout
your pursuit,
As my eyes were already being forced to stay open.

In that moment,
I don't think it would have mattered if I was passed out on the
floor with no pulse.
It wasn't the soul within me you cared about,
But the shell that you could manipulate for your own temporary
pleasure.

The inhuman manipulation took place

After what was supposed to be a cliche high school memory,
Followed by a birthday celebration.
I was turning seventeen.

You used me as a gift to yourself on my own birthday,

And claimed you were doing it fo rmy benefit.
As if the lack of pleasure was something I should be grateful
for.

A part of me became a zombie that night,

Lost in a neverending battle in which I wonder if it was my own
fault.
I wonder if what you did was okay because, after all,
"Everyone else does it after prom".

you lit the fire | 19