Matches
Writing comes from a place of crisis, of keeping your head above water. Maybe that’s why it feels like I’ve never done it before now.
Fire: one of the four classical elements. A symbol of energy and transformation.
Fire: the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
Fire: a plasma. Not a gas or a solid, but a transient state between the elements prior to ignition and spent fumes.
Fire: a process. A state of becoming.
Pyrokinesis: the ability to create and control fire with the mind.
I. Heat
If you don’t kill yourself at 27, life comes at you extra hard. It’s the Saturn return. I was 27 when my son was born. There was a shift in creative energy. Like someone had struck a match. My tolerance for bullshit had evaporated, though the actual practice of weeding out bullshit would be slow-going. I was activated and unprepared, with a deep well of unconditional love and a million sharp edges. I was overwhelmed by my newfound capacity for violence, my sudden ability to rip the teeth out of anyone or anything that threatened the little raw soul. My life had gained a quantifiable purpose and real, measurable stakes. Everything was important, imbued with meaning and consequence where before there had been shadows. I have no idea what I’m doing but we’re going to figure it out together, I told the little raw soul, minutes old. Just you and me. I had energy and stamina, in so much pain but so close to something. I had God gripped by the ankles. I was young, and I was nobody. I had fire. I was fire.
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