Let it burn

You spend the holidays alone trying to cook recipes you’ve never tried before, choking down your disappointment and guilt, the mess of conflicting impulses you’ve made for yourself, you drink to feel better. You’ve done this to yourself but you look for someone else to blame. You run down the street wanting to be possessed, thrown over, to have all of your wounds nailed shut, soul rid of but it doesn’t work this way so you go back to the house and find the kitchen on fire, the dog barking. This isn’t even your house, this isn’t even your dog

You pour yourself another glass of wine and you let the fire burn while you drink yourself to sleep

There she is, teasing you, trying on different lingerie sets for you

in front of the camera, piercing blue eyes, pale white skin trembling, waiting

You stare at her perfectly shaped belly button while she struggles to put on the blue lace suspender she knows you like so much. You start counting her birthmarks to avoid making a decision and suddenly you want to confide in her, tell her how you failed to surrender yourself, how you still remain a mediocre version of yourself despite of how much better you think you deserve but that’s vanity talking—we don’t know what we deserve or who we should have become except for ourselves

You fear she wouldn’t accept the battling monsters within you, the failures ramped up inside you, the weaknesses in you and yet all you can think of is turning her around and pinning her up against the wall, catching a glimpse of her alleviated look in the mirror, making her feel like she’s discovered something she doesn’t even have a name for

The enormity of your desire disgusts you, you can only let yourself be consumed by one thing tonight and you choose to disregard the fire burning down the house. You walk over to her and you know there was never going to be another version of this story