I Want to Burn

There is dirt crusted under my fingernails
and a thousand miles of dusty road behind
empty except for words which blow like
spiderwebs in the breeze;
and some nights are a fight to keep from
screaming,
because the empty words won't come.
Some days it hurts because I want to burn
with the light of a thousand suns, to melt
my skin and explode from my finger tips
but the brightness is smothered
by the smoke in my lungs,
of a thousand cigarettes I never smoked.
Some nights it's a struggle not to make up
my bed on train tracks,
and wait for the light at the end of the tunnel
and pretend that this is the light,
I cannot create.
I want so badly to be the fiery sun,
but all I've ever been is smoke - and songs.