SHORT SNAPSHOTS

BONFIRE INSIDE

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I had a fire pretty much every weekend this past summer. I saw a small curious flame light a full tree and then crawl right back down to the dead grass beneath. I saw paper so straight before curling up into shavings of a baker’s chocolate carving. I saw people laugh and the soles of shoes drip to a rock circle that framed some flames. One time we forgot a lighter and so my friend took my jumper cables and tried to light some logs with stupidity. I’d like to say we were successful, but we weren’t. There were fires with thirty people and some with 3. Sholsen would always bring his “BONFIRE SWEATSHIRT.” Most of the time I would just hang there in my little hammock, play my ukulele, and smell the smoke and fiery flakes shooting off the campfire. 

Some people, including myself, like to burn things outside but ever since my birthday I’ve had one inside. This one crackles and burns and then dies until someone or something else fans it. It’s unpredictable. I can hear it snap and then there is silence for a little while. Every time I try to starve it out or suffocate it someone or something takes a log from the burn pile and feeds the wild animal and it continues to roar. It’s not really the kind that motivates you to do anything productive whatsoever, most people just sit and watch it flicker. I don’t think it’ll combust. I think It’s purifying me but I can’t be too sure. 

 I was thinking the other day about the time my mom caught me roasting mini marshmallows over a candle when I was about 13. I just really wanted to taste that caramel crisp melt into a sweet and gooey inside and I knew I couldn’t make a big fire and we didn’t have any marshmallows larger than the tip of my thumb. I feel like I was caught smoking a blunt from her reaction but really it was just boredom and immaturity. That one was easy to put out compared to this new fire that’s decided to camp out inside me.  

I thought my veined forest was burnt to a crisp by August but there are still coals being stirred, I guess. They say enough heat can bend metal. Maybe that’s what’s happening inside of me. I’m not sure what shape I’m gonna be in after and at this point. One day I might just be spreading my own ashes by the sea like an end to some tragic movie that my dad tears up in. I remember the full fires from May and June and July but here I’ll be in November shivering in cold air but burning inside because I haven’t quite figured out what is scorching my soul. 

“Is it that hard to love me?” I asked a friend. “Is that too much to ask?” I thought to myself while looking at her looking at me. Only if you can’t love yourself, I thought to myself. She, like any normal friend, gives that awkward speech you get when your down and your friend is reaching down to forklift your emotionally exhausted body off the ground. I smile and nod and see the clear air in front of me vibrating with the waves of heat.