He was a photograph and I was the fire to it. Picture perfect like a polaroid taken in the 80’s, framed in a scrapbook for his children to admire what a beautiful life he lived; until such ink got caught in a wildfire. Though with a grip of sureness, he shook hands with fire, daring the thrill of unknown dangers and greeting the ashes it promised. I still go to sleep every night hoping my flames weren’t that bright, hoping they weren’t transparent enough to see through them, behind them. Mostly because everything my hands of flame touch, come falling down like a forest in a wildfire, leaving dust and memories in its wake. Leaving heartbreak. I prayed that his heart was brave enough to bear my internal fire yet also my frosted exterior.
This left me unsoundly sleeping, waking up before the mural of sunrise each morning as I prayed the moon shone brighter than me in his eyes. So still I sit in my car through the darkness of dusk and dawn, studying the city lights and how orange luminescence could be admired rather than feared. Firefighters wouldn’t dare come to put out those orange lights with the holy pill bottles that sit on my nightstand. They wouldn’t wash them away with the white wash of the ocean during a storm, drowning them until there’s no room left to breathe. People don’t poke and prod to play with danger only to realize it leaves a scar; they do it because it’s exciting. So you see, the mural of acrylic orange and red that runs like watercolor when the world wakes, isn’t feared, but only admired. The blazing glow it casts over the world like an encompassing lantern only brings a new day rather than a downfall. So what’s different about the flames that lay active in my veins, searing songs of bloody destruction. Why don’t they scare him? Why has he come to play with fire though it will scar like molten metal against skin. I’ll brand his picture perfect polaroid with a reminder to never love orange light again because no longer will things be the same afterwards. He’ll learn that the sun is too bright and that warmth is now uncomfortable. Each summer day when the gates of blaze open from the hand of the sun he’ll be reprimanded of such mistakes as it wraps around his skin like the scars I left. So promise me you won’t let my fire make you a forest in its last wake. Swear to me you don’t love heartbreak. Because picture perfect and wildfires only swear upon the imminence of destruction.