Something Burning Up Inside

Fire either flares or fades.

It has the capacity to grow and sustain itself, to breathe and thrive, but can just as likely snuff out and die.

Naturally this is all contingent on under what circumstances the flame is produced, but for the sake of this post ignore all your Smokey the Bear arguments and lend yourself to the notion that fire either flares or fades.

In Regina Spektor's song The Calculation, she sings, in the chorus, "Hey this fire is burning, burning us up."

This fire is burning me up.

And burning me out.

These flames that burgeoned from the pit of my stomach are no longer content contained in my body. This vessel is not sufficient for growth.



Fire either flares or fades.

I sat back on my haunches and watched the wood alight, wondering for the thousandth time what it is about life that is so combustible by an element I commend man for taming.

Or, in the very least, harnessing.

Fire's ability to spark from nothing primarily interests me. This phantasmic creation of destruction, heat, light, is a feat synonymous with electricity as one I'll never comprehend regardless how numerously I set fire alight or intricately I am tutored on tungsten. These chemicals, these reactions, this microscopic world that reacts and exhibits itself frantically about every atom of my being will forever be lost on me.

I am doomed to wander through a realm I vaguely understand, victim to whatsoever occurrence the natural world sees fit, as I am unable to contradict it.

I am a harnesser of fire.

I do not in slight assume I've tamed it.