And Oh, How I Burn

I can feel the fire on my skin

It licks up my arms

Blazes across my clothes

Makes my skin roast

It has for years

No one else seems aware of it at all

They pass by with blank stares

None of the alarm I'd expect

But the fire must be there

Because I can feel it

Vibrant

Dangerous

Unapologetically ravenous in its hunger

It's a friend and it's an enemy

And it eats me alive

When the day brings with it

Unbearable pain,

The flames find fuel in my tears

As my throat cinches shut

And my eyes throb with the force of my emotions

The fire jumps higher

Its embers are righteous in their heat

They do not fizzle out

They do not dissipate into ash

They are only coaxed to burn brighter

To wrap around me and squeeze my rib cage

So tightly

I can't bear to breathe

To think

Mind crumbling in on itself

As the flames feed on my anguish

Leaving me with nothing to do

But collapse where I stand

And wail

When the day brings with it

A flash of joy, delight

The sun burning bright

An incomprehensibly gigantic ball of fire

My own little embers

Flicker just below my diaphragm

And make lighter the warmth of my chest

I feel its power

Dance through my veins

Snippets of light disguised as serotonin

Crackling beneath my skin

Beneath my smile

Accumulating in my lungs

As I use the curls of smoke

Like a steam-powered engine

To yell my exuberance to the world

When the day brings with it

The coals of rage and wrath

The fire finds it difficult to emerge

Only because I smother it tightly

I try to suffocate it

To cut the oxygen away

And in doing so

I begin to feel the burn of my lungs

Begging for air

For the fire and I are one and the same

And in silencing it

All I am doing

Is letting it eat away

At the ugly tar lining my stomach

Lining my heart

Igniting in the aftermath

Of my poorly swallowed anger

When the day brings with it

A lightning stick of fear

That is when the flames burn brightest

My fear runs cold

And the flames turn gasoline blue

As I pour oil over my hair

And let it drip into my eyes

The fire ignites

Sparks

Crackles

Dances

Burns and burns and burns

I take the heat of the flame

And use it to fight my fear

Limbs tense with searing pain

As the fire urges me to run the other way

But all I do is use its power

To keep pushing forward

I can feel the fire on my skin

But lately, something has changed

My fingertips were cold the other day

And it hurt to swallow hot chocolate

Right out of the microwave

I asked the tendrils of heat

Why they were smaller today

And all they could do

Was curl back into my palm

And tremble

Ice has begun to creep up my legs

It seeps in

Through cracks in my flaming armor

I did not know I had

The ice is making itself a home

Living in sub-zero arteries

And the newly frozen wasteland of my lungs

It creates a thin sheen of frost in my esophagus

And coats my tongue in burning snow

The heat of the cold is ironic

In the cruelest sense possible

My little dying embers sit

Scared

Nestled away in the palm of my hands

They burn low

Dim

Quiet

Rustling wildly as freezing winds escape my mouth

I do not know what went wrong

Or when they died

Or where they died

Or why they've died

Or how to reignite them

So for now

I will hold my hands to my chest

Take a deep, rattling breath

And wait for dawn to set them alight

Anew

Awake

Mine once more