4/30 - My Inferno

I've always liked watching fires
Sitting on the floor in a blanket
Staring silently into the flames
Focused, not on the people around,
not on the smells or the sounds,
only on the warmth and the light.

I've always liked feeling fires.
Heat strong enough to burn turned soothing on my skin.
Perhaps watching the fire without
is what kindles the inferno within.
I've felt what it's like to get too close,
to get burned by what you think you know...

I've always wondered about fires
What the center of the flame would feel like if skin didn't burn.
I've always wished I could learn what the wick feels like,
Surrounded by a blue halo telling the world I can stand the heat.

I've always had a thing for fires.
I went through a candle phase.
Not for the colors, scents, or the decorative effect of carefully sculpted wax,
But for the flames.
I lined candles up on my dresser and shelves,
Lit them and centered myself until I started to sweat.
I lay there until the heat began to feel suffocating,
then I extinguished the flames to temper the heat,
One by one,
Degree by degree,
but left the last one burning until I was nearly asleep.

I've always had a thing for fires,
Even from the womb.
A Leo, born under an infernal sign,
to a father inept at warming, adept at burning things into the dirt,
and a mother who just wanted us to work.

I hear many people fall into categories of personality:
Fire or ash,
Destroyer or the destroyed,
Ignition or the effect of the flame,
the Actor and the acted upon.
I think I'm the weaker one.
That which is turned to dust,
that which has been burned too much,
that which has forgotten to trust,
that without strength enough to stay together.
That which dares not to aspire
to a product thoroughly changed in a Refiner's Fire.

I've always been attracted to flame.
Maybe that's why I don't leave the inferno.