"Need to Burn" by Christopher Fox Graham

Photo by David Jolkovski/Larson Newspapers

"Need to Burn"

by Christopher Fox Graham

Oct. 13, 2025

we bring magic to this microphone
each one of us, a story to tell
some for the wordplay
some with tongue brushes
to landscape the canvas of your skull

these words are art
deprived of musical instrument
chiseled away from marble
cut out of canvas
a moment in a breath in time

you can put spoken word to paper,
but it doesn't live there
it lives in the space between
my lips and your ears
between the words on the page
and how you hear them in your mind

“fuck linear time,”

but read a poem backwards
and derive meaning from it

with answers more immediate
you can exercise your demons
overcome your trauma
forgive your sins

your hate

your pain

this stage brings healing if you want it
and many walk away recovered
but some of us are addicted
to others’ stories
to your story
so, we live in theirs
every poet on this mic

I don't want to heal
don't let this hurt softened
the damage undone

I come to feel
to relive those moments,
even the worst ones,

especially the worst ones:

the absent father
who taught me how not to be a man
the lost lovers
who left because of what I said

“They Held Hands”
my 9/11 poem
is not about the politics
but that moment
in Flagstaff

when i sat at a bar
and watched people like me
leap from the windows 

from the 92nd floor

they will never hear this poem
no matter how many times I perform it

they will never stop their fall
never gain wings
never touch the earth gently
they fall 

over 

and over 

and over

and I can't stop them

no matter how many times I spit the poem

I read it

to go back there

to that day

to relive that horror
to be here

but then

every poem about a dead poet is the same eulogy
For Chris Lane,
Jack McCarthy,
Aaron Norris,
David Blair,
Jack Egan,
Will Bell,
Rochelle Brener,
Andrea Gibson,
Rage Almighty,

Bowerbird,
Danny Solis,
The Klute

every time I say their names
they come back to me

I'm there with them

at the slams

the drunken walks home

the hotel room afterparties

the practices,

the workshopping,

the editing,

the shit-talking

the sharing stories of other poets

the memories

the moment that they died

reacting with a clenched heart

that can't bear to be broken again,

but always is

always has to be

I can't bring them back
hear a new poem they would have written
with another year,
another month,
another day to write it.

I don't say their names to heal,
but to live the loss 

again 

and again 

and again

it’s how I keep them alive

no poem can undo their sins or mine
no matter how furiously I scribble,
or what scores you give me

that's not how this works

“fuck linear time”

but we can't go back and
unsay, undo,

un-live these things

Some poets write for therapy
to forgive
to heal
to be unbroken

I don't

I need this to burn

I need this pain

it's what made me
it's why I'm here now
not across town
drinking whiskey or wine
blissfully healed and happy

I'm here to go back to those places
to relive those moments
to be back in that skin
that moment 

that hurts

that cuts fresh down to the bone

bleeds out in syllable and simile

I'm more scar tissue than skin now

a bag of broken bones 

mended by metaphors

duct tape 

and poet spit

if you can make this, [points to head]
feel that [points to heart]
with this [lips]

that’s poetry

all the rest of this is pageantry and window dressing,
pretty packaging we discard for what's inside
that's why I do this
why slam is a drug I can’t quit

if someone could cure this

cleave slam and poetry from memory
I would refuse it

so I want to ache on your words,
poets, wordsmiths, heartbreakers and life-livers
I want to be deep in those moments with you

live like you were you, then

feel what you felt, then

inside you is a hurricane
spinning around your best and worst moments,
waiting for the proper breath to exhale them
a tsunami of ache and longing
and broken moments that made you

some of us don't want salvation

some of don’t want to heal

some of us want to burn

you, poet, 

are an atom bomb
with blowtorch lips
light up this room
and burn it down to the foundation

leave this audience

in ashes

Photo by David Jolkovski/Larson Newspapers