The first day I found comfort should have been the earliest sign of my disease. When my throat could not tell apart the crisp winter air with the stale breath of a toxic mire merely because they both stand still. The way a lantern’s lonely flame tantalized me more than the structure that housed it. Perhaps it is so simple that I could never see the difference between movement and progress, or rest and stagnation.

It’s a predictable transition from ethanol to fire, from fire to smoke, from smoke to collecting ash of the remains of everything that mattered and pushing it in desperate to make a soot castle I might live in to see if I’ve built something suitable to burn down again.

At a time if felt the urge came from divine inspiration. As if I could pull some truth from the space between dancing lights that comforts me and tells me there is a purpose to my destruction seperate the horror that I suspect. As though I could find more comfort in the cruel release of energy displayed before me than in the home it had once been.

Yet the curse of fire was never a burden of destiny. Like Midas chose to gild all that he held I questioned to see what might be flammable. Instead of satiating a desire for wealth with things that shine I meet depression with pyromania only to feed the mouth I meant to be fighting.

Last year I knew the bravest thing about me was that I  would stand in every fire I set, to walk or be pulled out would have meant failure to see through what I was there to destroy. Adding a second failure to the home that I fell short of making fire proof.

This month I gathered my tinder and gases, lighter and matches in an willow box. In rising waters I could see that there are more beautiful things than flms, fonder places than the sun, braver actions than self destruction. I threw the box down a waterfall and prayed I hadn’t forgotten any match sticks beneath my bed frame.